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Published: March 2nd 2017
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NZ has some stunning beaches but nothing to beat the Cape St Francis Beach...yet!! " Travel makes one modest. You can see what a tiny place you occupy in the World." Gustave Flaubert So it was with slightly heavy hearts that we left Otamure Bay and the Bay of Islands region. With Sue clutching onto the map and often turning it a full 360 deg to get orientation, we set off for the Bay of Plenty located on the east coast. This journey retraced our steps and after a brief coffee stop (these are essential) at Whangarei, the HBS nosed it's way south towards Auckland. New Zealand is seriously well geared up for travel with excellent signage to indicate places of interest and the small villages one passes through are neat and exceptionally clean. Roads are very good and motorists stick to the speed limits with a maximum of 100kph on open roads. It makes for safe and pleasant driving.
Apart from taking in the beautiful countryside scenery as one trundles along, there is opportunity to listen to stuff on the NZ radio stations. On this leg of our travels we just happened by chance to tune into a chat show and the topic under discussion was the health of some of NZ's
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Kaye and Sue holding a towel which Kaye bought way back in 1975 when they toured Europe. Sentimental! rivers and lakes. The Govt. had just announced a new Ecoli level regarded as safe for humans of about 564 parts per whatever and this caused a real uproar on the airwaves. It also burst a little bubble for me as I had always pictured NZ as a country with unpolluted waterways. Not so! Many rivers and small lakes are badly polluted and the two key reasons given were the impact of agriculture and lack of action in prior years dealing with the problem. Lots of pissed off callers in to the station including one surfer bloke who claimed that the beach where he surfs had cow patties alongside him in the waves! There is enormous agricultural activity in the countryside with huge dairy and beef herds and lots of sheep...so, no surprise that animal pooh finds it's way into water courses. The good news is that there is improvement and the Govt. is spending big bucks to turn the tide.
Our south easterly heading eventually put us within striking range of our destination Tauranga, which is one of NZ's fastest growing cities with the country's busiest port driving the local economy. This is also a premier fruit growing
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A view across another stretch of beach to Mount Manganui. region boasting large orchards of kiwi fruit and avocados. Interesting to learn that kiwi fruit is not of NZ origin but found it's way here from Southern China. The orchards are mostly surrounded by high and well manicured pine tree hedges which provide a wind break and maybe moderate icy winter conditions. Along the roadside are numerous "honesty boxes" where one can stop and buy local produce leaving money in the box. Unmanned. Interesting concept for SA?
The key reason for our four day stop in Tauranga was to spend time with Kaye Miller, a very close friend of Sue's who was her Bride of Honour at our betrothal a few years back. Kaye moved to NZ with her three young daughters about twenty years ago after tragically losing her husband, Keith, in a fly fishing float tube accident. As you can imagine these two had tons of catching up to do and hardly drew breath for the entire stay. Her home is on Marine Drive with a superb 15km long beach across the road. Great weather during our stay and sea temp of 23 deg C meant lots of beach and swimming time. I was fortunate to have
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Jonty and Joy on "Goosha". There almost more boats than people in NZ. the opportunity to go deep sea fishing twice with Kaye's sister, Joy, and her fiance Jonty. Wonderful fishing area for kingfish and snapper but despite giving it our best shot, no fish were caught. Their boat has a distinctly SA name to it ("Goosha"... meaning sheep) although Jonty alluded to his view that it best resembled Joy's hairstyle. An interesting observation was signage before entering the beach. In particular a Tsunami sign board giving instructions on what to do in the event of......... There are coloured coded areas providing an idea of land elevation and where one should head to at top speed if the ultimate wave presents itself. Not sure how much warning there would be although there must be a siren system.
At the northern end of this impressive beach is Mount Manganui, which rises steeply off the shore and provides a profound landmark. It has a 3.5km walkway around it providing spectacular views of beach, harbour and open ocean. We did this walk twice and it is hugely popular with young Mums pushing prams with babies on board. Somewhere in conversation we heard that almost 75% of babies in NZ are born out of wedlock and
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Busy beach view. Tauranga is one of NZ's most popular beach holiday resorts. the parents do marry some time later in life.
Real quality time spent with Kaye and friends and also allowed for detailed inspection of maps as we plotted and planned our sojourn ahead. After three wonderfully warm, sunny days we set off on a grey, rainy Tuesday morning for Rotorua.
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Kaye
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Tauranga
So great to have you staying my friends but it went too fast!! Now you can picture us in The Bay of Plenty plenty of everything?