Saturday, 4 November, was a partly cloudy day, and even though it was the weekend we decided to venture through the town of Tauranga to the large lava dome we can see from our B&B. The lava dome is not Mt. Maunganui though! Mt. Maunganui is the name of the resort town, now a suburb of Tauranga. ‘The Mount’, known to the Maori as Mauao, is a popular hiking area with summit trails and a base trail that encircles it. We joined lots of other folks wanting to get outside after yesterday’s rain!

On Google maps Mauao is a blob of land at the end of a spit forming the entrance to Tauranga Harbour, a busy port that has international shipping traffic.

The map sign board was handy for our hike, but trying to distinguish the trails by their Maori names was difficult!

As we started our hike up we met part of the landscaping crew! Mauao was a prominent Maori Pa (fortified village) whose terraced summit was traditionally kept clear of forest so the residents could protect their stores of water (maybe a well) and taro and kumara (sweet potatoes), the staple foods of the Maori pre-European influence.

We could look down on Tauranga Harbour and the heavily forested Matakana Island fronting the harbour. Clearcuts are visible.

Looking back towards Tauranga (population of about 161,000) and the busy port. We saw a ship loaded with logs being escorted out of the harbour by tug boats.

As we reached the summit, we could see the windward side view, looking down on the town’s beach that stretches east to join Papamoa beach in the distance.

Being the windward side, paragliders take advantage! This guy was doing sweeping turns and dives down the cliffs!

We descended on the windward side and hiked around the base back to our starting point.

We got a real Oregon Coast vibe on the seaward side of the mountain!

We walked out to the beach for a look back at the mountain (and the finish line for a race finished or not yet begun?).

We finished our day with a great grilled lamb dinner and drinks looking over the meadow at sunset!

…Bring December Flowers! More rain today, steady, heavy downpours! No wonder it’s so green here, and flowers are everywhere. The pohutukawa trees have started blooming, and nasturtiums are growing like weeds along roadsides! We stayed inside today and worked on future plans.

Gray skies through rain speckled windows.

You can’t be too upset about the rain when you have a palm tree!

I used the time to make a few recipes. Thanks to our previous host we had avocados from her garden that were ripening quickly!

Perfectly ripe avo’s for guacamole!

Yummy!

We explored nearby areas today. Starting with the town that our accommodation sits above, Maketu. A town of under 1500 people (over 65% Maori) has a local, quiet, calm, non-touristy vibe. It sits between the Maketu estuary of the Kaituna river and Okurei Pt., the historic Maori Pa site overlooking the beach. Maketu is the historic landing site of the Arawa, one of the pioneer canoes of the Maori that left their homeland of “Hawaiki” between 800-1000 years ago, and landed in New Zealand or Aotearoa (loosely translated as ‘land of the long white cloud’) as they named it. The Te Arawa confederation of Maori iwi (tribes) and hapu (subtribes) living in the Rotorua and Bay of Plenty areas trace their ancestry from the people of this canoe.

The town is below the line of houses below us. The estuary is the water to the left of the sand spit, the ocean beach is to the right.

We drove down and parked at the only restaurant in town! We strolled the walkway into ‘town centre’ where they have a kids playground, a ‘freedom camping area’ (for self contained campers) and even an exercise area with sturdy simple exercise equipment!

The start of the beach in Maketu.

After checking out the only store in town, a tiny but surprisingly well stocked convenience store (or ‘Dairy’ as they are called here) we continued our tour of the area. We drove backroads for about 15 minutes to the Kaituna Scenic Wetlands Reserve, at the west end of the Maketu estuary, where the Kaituna river empties into the Bay of Plenty.

A fishing dock was built at the edge of the dunes where local families were congregated, camping, swimming, fishing and visiting.

On the right side of the dock kids were playing in the waves, supervised by vigilant parents!

On the left side of the dock the river current fought against the ocean tide, apparently a great spot to fish!

And in the parking area, a really nice toilet!

This morning we left the calm restful atmosphere of the Convent Hotel and drove into downtown Auckland to SkyCity, an entertainment, hotels, restaurants, casino and theatre complex that boasts the SkyTower, the second tallest freestanding structure in the Southern Hemisphere! Our purpose; a 10:30am appointment to walk around the SkyDeck and to jump off of it! Thankfully the wind was a mild 7mph and the recent storm had passed. We even had some sun!We suited up  along with 3 more adventurous women and took the quick elevator ride to the top! We stepped outside!

This was actually after we finished our walk on the deck, we were all relieved to get back behind the railing!

Our guide walked us out onto the platform – sans railings, and led us through several challenges. We all got visibly more relaxed during the 20-30 minutes we were out there, even letting go of our guide rope in front of us (which Robert never used as a security handhold!)We all headed back down to the lobby and Robert and I exchanged our SkyWalk harnesses for the SkyJump harnesses. Another woman who hadn’t done the SkyWalk suited up and was the first to jump today! I was second!

In the cable room. The guides are very vigilant about safety!

And before you know it, the wind is whistling through your hair and you don’t even notice that you’re screaming!

Robert’s turn!

I could hear him scream from the base of the tower where I waited for him to arrive!

You can see video of Robert’s jump HERE!

We were all done by 12:30! What a morning! We still had plenty of time to get to our next accomodation, a VRBO in Maketu, on the beach about a 40 minute drive north of Rotorua. It was a pleasant drive, mostly on highways, until we got to a steep drive up and over a pass in the Kaimai Range and lots of roundabouts, road construction and rush hour in Tauranga, the closest large town.

We had a rainbow guiding us part of the way to our destination, at the end of the rainbow!

We got moved in and enjoyed a glass of wine as we surveyed the view and found out we have a sunset view here!

An exciting day with a fitting end!

Our last morning with the wonderful Bay of Islands view.

Today we left Bay of Islands to continue our tour of New Zealand. We left in a light rain and traveled to Auckland, through misty rain, heavy rain and sideways rain. I wonder if the Maori have many names for different grades of rain, like the Inuit have for grades of snow? We finally made it to our destination, The Convent Hotel, a boutique hotel near downtown that was a convent in it’s early days. An interesting history of the building can be found HERE.

The walls are covered with eclectic art, some with religious tones.

Cabinets have religious figures and artifacts that may have been used at the convent.

After settling in we went for a walk around the area to stretch our legs. The area seems to be gentrifying, with many older maybe 1920’s era houses being restored, and a few very dilapidated houses yet to be fixed up.

This mosaic was one of several along a wall in the shopping and dining strip a few blocks along the street.

This row of houses with the same peaked roof design exemplify the style of housing in this neighborhood. Almost all the houses have metal roofs.

It being Halloween here, we saw kids in costume with Moms and Dads tagging along, trick or treating on the residential streets. It’s a relatively new tradition here, so we didn’t see elaborate Halloween decorations anywhere, but there was some!

Happy Halloween!