Hiking, swimming, giant kiwis and rotten eggs!

Panoramic view from top of Papamoa Hills hike

Saturday, Feb. 12th.
After Nat’s dolphin swimming was cancelled, we woke up to a beautiful blue sky day.  We scanned the skies looking for signs of the “bad weather” that had caused the cancellation, but it wasn’t overly windy and the clouds were far away on the horizon.  Maybe weather forecasters are as accurate here as they are in Calgary, ha ha ha. 
Got going a bit late after checking out before 10am. Filled up the car with gas, cost over $60NZD, at $1.99 per litre.  We had driven 400km on the first tank. Grabbed a mocha and the most delicious savoury muffin at The Hub, a coffee shop right next to the Shell. Man these Kiwis know how to do breakfast food!!

Path to summit of Papamoa Hill

We decided to leave Tauranga and head southeast down the coast towards Papamoa. Barry found a good short hike in the Papamoa Hills, which would give us panoramic views in the area. On the way, we took a wrong turn (that’s been happening alot in the Tauranga area, which lacks signs for key freeway turnoffs!!) and decided to check out Papamoa Beach beforehand. Glad we did, as it looked like a nice swimming beach, with lifeguards on duty, changerooms and lots of places to sit on the soft sand.  We decided we’d come back here after the hike to go for a dip and relax.

South to the Bay of Plenty

Today we drove south and east from Auckland to the Bay of Plenty region, the fruitbowl of New Zealand.  So far we've only purchased some NZ apples, but no kiwifruit yet!  We'll sample some soon, we promise!  Our destination was the city of Tauranga, where I was planning to go on a dolphin swimming, whale watching excursion into the bay on Saturday morning.  Sadly, because of expected rain and wind tomorrow, found out this evening that it is cancelled.  I'm very disappointed but hoping that we'll be able to catch up with those dolphins in some other part of NZ later on in the trip.  There are several places you can do it, on both the North and South Island.

View from summit of Mt Maunganui

The drive to Tauranga showed us the pretty rolling farmland and countryside of NZ.  It's so green here it's a nice change from the browns and whites of the scenery in Calgary.  Also, we stopped at another beautiful beach in Waihia, a little northwest of Tauranga.  Hardly anyone at this beach, but it had the same soft blackish sand we saw in Piha yesterday.  If it was a little warmer today, would have loved to go swimming here.  The beaches we've seen so far in NZ rival those of any we've seen on our vacations, including Hawaii and Mexico.

Barry on Mt Maunganui

In late afternoon, we hiked up to the summit of Mt Maunganui ("large mountain"), right near Tauranga.  This was our Stairmaster, Part Deux (if you read yesterday's post).  Known by Maori as Mauao, it is a spiritual place for them and very sacred.  No development is allowed on the mountain. 

Thursday, Feb. 10 - The Road to Piha Beach

Yesterday was an interesting day of driving to say the least!  Poor Barry drove most of the winding road to Piha from Auckland with its lovely blind corners and very narrow lanes with no shoulder.

Leaving behind the morning rush hour traffic of Auckland, we headed west towards the West Coast to check out the black sand beaches of Piha and Karekare (site of several film locations including The Piano).  We took a crazy video on the road that winds down the final stretch to Piha, and if you ever watch it, take some Gravol beforehand if you tend to get motionsick!  The beaches were both beautiful, the sand is so fine it's like baby powder.  The surf is a little rough, so I lost my nerve to go bodysurfing out there. And there was a water quality warning for Karekare beach against swimming. Got a nice burn on my feet and my chest though, where I obviously forgot to put enough sunscreen!  Sun is extremely strong here, no doubt about it.

After visiting the beaches, we took the Scenic Drive back towards Auckland via the Waitakere Ranges and the winery town of Swanson.  The area was thick and lush with vegetation, similar to a rainforest, and quite mountainous.  We stopped for a hike called Fairy Falls.  I'll call this hike "Stairmaster, Part One", as you head down, down, down into the forest on a steep path and stairs, knowing that you are going to have to trudge back up at some point!  There were Kiwis actually running back up, just to humble us even more.  The destination was thankfully worth it, with spectacular falls and pools just inviting you to jump in!  We dunked our feet into one pool, felt great.  The way back was indeed a tad difficult, but at least it was a fairly short hike, in total around 1 hr, 15 minutes.

In the evening, we drove over to the posh district of Mission Bay, where million dollar apartments are the norm.  The main beach road has a seawall boardwalk and row of funky restaurants and cafes, full of people walking, people watching, and having picnics in the park area.  We tried our first "fush and chups" meal at a small takeaway place, and had takahiri fish - a nice mild white fish. Yummmm.

The Longest Day

Life is good.  We made it to Auckland at 7 AM Wed morning after a shorter flight than expected - only 12 hours, 12 minutes(was supposed to be 13h)! Add that onto our time since leaving Calgary and we were in transit for about 22 hours.  Although we probably dozed on and off for about 6 of those 12 hours to NZ, yesterday we felt like we could be poster children for what it means to feel "jet lag"!  I also had some lovely cankles to show off in my shorts (those are fat swollen ankles by the way).

For more details on what we did in Auckland on our very long first day, visit the page on Auckland City of Sails. Cheers everyone!

We made it....

...to LAX.  After waiting in Calgary for over an hour for our flight because our plane was in storage and needed to be towed to our gate, and then getting de-snowed and de-iced, we made it!!!  To L.A., after a very bumpy flight over California.  Was happy to watch the movie The Social Network during the flight - was pretty good, but I think I'd be more impressed if I actually USED Facebook! Like some of my friends...you know who you are. :)