Tauranga, Rotorua & Pukehina

---

Saturday, 20th
I said my goodbyes to the Gerbers, and Aubrey took me for a great breakfast at the Sands Diner, I think. He dropped me off in a park near the Pak n Save where I waited for Johan, my fathers nephew.

He met me there around 15:00. we dropped my backpack at his house in Mount Maunganui & set of to Rotorua for some sightseeing.

As you drive into Rotorua, you become aware of a strange smell. Not so much a bad smell as a HORRIBLE smell! I imagine it is what hell will smell like, very sulfurous! (because of all the volcanic activity) We stopped at an amusement park, where we saw the dinosaurs.

It was quite windy and rainy as we got into town, so we just quickly hopped out for a couple of photos, and headed to The Bathhouse Museum. It is a rather impressive structure dating back from... I forgot my bad, but it was a long time ago! We went inside and watched a very interesting film on the history of Rotorua and the big eruption that killed 120 people, if I remember correctly.

We headed back to Tauranga and Johan treated me to a fantastic Scotch Steak at the Naked Grape restaurant.

Sunday, 21st
We decided to head out to Whakatane (words starting with "Wh" in Maori, is pronounced "F") so that is quite a dirty sounding name! We stopped for brunch at a small American style Diner an I had a whopper of a burger, Werner would have loved it!

Afterwards we headed out to Pukehina, a very small townish thing, one very long street with houses all along the beach. We walked along the beach around the point while Johan told me where to find Pippies (small shelled creature) and how to prepare them.

We didn't make it to Whakatane because we had to be back in Tauranga at 18:00 for the Christmas service at the Afrikaans church. It was quite weird to have a service Afrikaans so far away from home. We had Christmas dinner after the service and I met some interesting people and a possible contact for a camp in the South Island.

We had some Strawberry Cheesecake at home and I packed for my bus ride to Wellington the next day.

---