Hi again!

What a smashing week I’ve had…..

A very lovely friend asked me to help her house-sit in Tauranga for a few days. Was told the house is literally on the beach in a very pretty area.

Thought about it for a few seconds and came up with a definite ‘YES’!

Here’s what we got up to:

Tuesday

Set off from Auckland at around 9.30 and arrived in Rotorua about 12’ish.

Quite well signposted and didn’t get lost at all! (Big pat on the back for ME).

Headed for the tourist information centre (where a yellow Duck Tours vehicle was patiently waiting for new passengers) and picked up loads of leaflets etc for present and future use.

Had a walk around Rotorua itself and was availed of a rotten eggs smell every so often – it wasn’t constant – came in interesting waves of varying degrees of pongyness.

Looked at the pools and the bubbly mud in the park – lots of steam, smells and bubbly plopping noises.



Saw that a new hole had opened up and suddenly realised that this could happen at any time beneath my feet. Eeek! Walked extremely cautiously after this, constantly on the lookout for cracks in the ground!



After a picnic lunch (strange to eat your ham rolls with these weird and wonderful aromas enveloping you), we drove out of Rotorua for a lazy afternoon in the Waikite Valley Thermal Pools.

It was a bit further away from Rotorua than I expected and really felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. Got a bit worried that I was lost at one point – but soldiered on (family motto – “If in doubt, do nowt”).

Anyway, it is open 7 days a week 10am to 10pm! (Apart from Christmas Day) There was a café there (Pukeko Ponga Tree Café – tastefully named), which became a very useful source of a basket of chips and pop when we felt hungry and thirsty later on! Such a healthy person I am.

The pool water is taken from a very hot spring nearby (Te Manaroa Spring) and does not smell at all. It is so warm and made my skin feel sooo soft – apparently it is calcite laden mineral water. The temperature of the pools is between 35C to 38C – heaven….


Steaming hot river running alongside the baths.

Spent lots of time slipping in and out of the deliciously warm pools and swimming lazily around.

And guess what the price is to use these pools? $8 for an adult (not sure about children) – and you can stay as long as you like! There were picnic tables and chairs provided. My kind of place.

Not many people were using the pools when we were there and those that were there included a family from Yorkshire!

At around 5.30pm, we reluctantly dragged ourselves off to drive on to Tauranga.

Tauranga

We realised that Tauranga was imminent by the imposing presence of Mount Maunganui in the distance.

Arrived at the house in time for home-made beefburgers fresh from the barby – yum! It was good to see friend again. Watched a bit of telly and had a natter over a glass of wine before retiring to my very inviting bed.

Son, meanwhile, was viewing Tauranga and its surrounding areas from the top of Mount Manganui (around 11pm)!

Woke up next day in time to take friend to the port in order to experience swimming with dolphins.

Son went kayaking with his friend and I went boogie boarding at the beach below the Mount.

Dolphins

Friend had a fab time and saw a couple of dolphin pods containing at least 100 each.

She held onto some kind of bar attached to the boat and the boat moved along with the dolphins. Everyone used snorkels and goggles in order to see and hear the squeaking chatter beneath. She also saw a baby dolphin! Awwww! (Say this in a high pitched girly voice).

Kayaking

Son and his friend kayaked from the house to an island in the distance. Said it was quite deserted when they got there – lovely sandy beaches. Kayaking back was hard work as it was against the tide – needless to say, they both slept well that night!

Boogie Boarding

This was such fun! The waves were quite high and I was bashed (bashed is a commonly used Kiwi word) about quite a lot – coooool! At one point the wave hit me so hard that I was turned around as though in a washing machine. (Very unladylike pictures come to mind here!) As I was coming out of it, the boogie board whacked my arm – “I’ll have a nice bruise there”, I thought. It’s MASSIVE! Now look like the victim of a severe beating!

Saw some very agile children jumping and diving through the waves, young men surfing and another young man catching the waves in a very short canoe/kayak. He controlled it very well and must have a super strong upper torso!

When I returned to the house, friend and I had a little go in the kayaks, then entered the water for a very refreshing swim.

Result – one knackered, bruised, very happy female at the end of the day!

In the evening, son and I cooked a Chinese meal to say thank you for our stay. We produced lemon chicken, beef in black bean sauce and stir fried brocolli in garlic with a soupcon of wine! Lovely.

Coromandel (Thursday)

On this third and final leg of our trip – I followed friend in her car along the coast towards the Coromandel.

We visited:
The Martha Mine in Waihi (this town truly looks like something out of the wild west! Pretty little place).

Gold and silver are mined here.

Watched in fascination the giant trucks winding their way up and down the circular roads of the quarry.



The trucks are ENORMOUS! Can you see any on the picture above? I spy with my little eye......!


Check out the size of the vans etc parked nearby compared to the truck!

Son is over 6ft and the wheels alone are taller than him!

The quarry is going to be filled with water soon (once mining is discontinued) and this process will take 5 YEARS!

The actual pit is nearly as deep as the height of the Sky Tower.

Also interesting anorak fact here:
The Sky Tower has a gold-plated ball at the top to safely conduct electricity to the ground just in case it gets struck by lightning.

There is a visitors’centre next to the viewing point with an interesting little film to watch and a display. Some very nice ladies there spoke to us and answered our questions. It was all FREE!

Whangamata (means obsidian harbour)

Apparently, this place is filled to the brim with thousands of teenagers and young people at new year.

Call me an old lady, but I liked it when I visited – quiet beach with families enjoying the surf.



There were some tree-filled islands dotted around which really reminded me of the scenery in parts of Thailand and Hong Kong that I have previously encountered.

It was just here that we ate some lovely chocolate orange cake (made by friend – recipe from Nigella Lawson’s cook book – delish) followed by juicy apricots, nectarines and plums that are well and truly in season now.

The cicadas are very loud at the mo and there is one right outside the French-doors as I type – SHUT UP!!!! Funny looking brown flying things they are!

Opoutere

What another beautiful hidden away place! I highly recommend a visit here. Parked the cars in the free car park with attached handy toilets and made our way across the creek through the woods towards the beach.

The woods were beautiful with some very interesting trees.


Serenely majestic!

We could hear the waves before we actually saw the beach and once again were enthralled by the sheer scenery and beauty of the place.



Footprints in the sand… Fine pale sand and hardly a soul there….



Son discovered that if you stamp your feet really hard on the darker more compact sand, the lighter sand around your feet bounces off the ground giving the illusion of a little light show!

After watching him demonstrate, we all proceeded to stamp up and down the beach exclaiming in surprise at our feat/feet and howling with laughter. Friend also videoed my feet on her camera – we called it the “Coromandel Stomp!” Hopefully no-one else witnessed this unusual behaviour!

After our beach adventures, we made our way to an artist’s house at Topadahil (get it?). The views from the French windows were breathtaking – a creek below leading onto the distant sea. (There was a telegraph pole in the creek too!)

On the way there, we bought cookies from some very entrepreneurial children (4 for a dollar in a variety of flavours). One of them enticed us to stop by holding an A4 piece of paper with the word COOKIES emblazoned in blue felt tip. They were delicious! Good on ‘em, eh!

The artist was a French lady and her work was delightful. Son bought a print for $10 (already protected by a simple glass frame) and I was told that, as a teacher, I could by any of the $1500 originals for only $200! Politely declined due to lack of funds at the mo – but it’s worth considering in the future.

Hot Water Beach

Our final destination before we made the semi-circular trek back to Auckland.

Feeling like pack-horses with our spades, togs (cossies etc) and boogie boards, we made our way towards the jutting out rocks in the distance.

Once there, we dug holes in the sand, which then filled up with hot water! During our labouring, the sea would keep invading the hole and we had to keep moving our feet around due to the sheer heat of the underground water. Fun, fun, fun!

After sampling the hot water, it was time for BOOGIE BOARDING!!!!! YAY!!! (Bet you didn’t realise I like it so much, eh?)

Had another FAB time. It’s so much giggly fun when that big wave comes towards you! One of them took us flying on the top of it for about 50m! Woohoooooo!

Now have boogie board burns on my forearms to add to previous day’s bruises.

After all of this fun – we sadly bade farewell to friends and made our way back to Auckland. Bye bye lovely friends and waves!

The roads were very curvaceous through the Coromandel Ranges (which were quite rocky with clouds hanging around menacingly at the top of them) with spectacular views - it can be quite tiring driving on this part of the journey – high amounts of concentration required.

Arrived in Auckland at around 8pm, just in time to dive into Food Town for meat and wine and then go on to a friend’s barby (my next door neighbour from the UK!) I must have looked a right sight – hair all over the place, red cheeks and bruises galore!

Finally got home at 11pm! Whew….

Needless to say – spent most of next day emptying car, washing clothes and shopping for food!

Total cost of holiday:

Cost of petrol
Food
Hot pools entrance

Great!

See ya

x Sue