February 4th, 2024

Another beautiful day with clear blue skies and weather in the 70s. Tauranga is a beach area and their beaches are white and sandy and can definitely rival Florida beaches. The water color is all different shades of blue but the water temperature is cold. So while it looked inviting it was too cold to get in. This area is big with New Zealanders for retirement. They have good weather, not to hot, not to cold. Our guide said they call the area “God’s waiting room”.

The water is crystal clear.

We did the ships included tour which was basically a drive around the countryside and then a stop and a local kiwi packaging plant where they sold kiwi souvenirs and talked about kiwi and did a short little local Maori show. The kiwi look just likes grapes when looking at their set-up and you have to crawl underneath the vine to harvest to fruit. They said it was back breaking work.

The cultural show

.After the bus dropped us back at the port we walked the beach and did a forest trail around a volcano.

Some beach scenes on our walk.

I love colorful boats!

We loved the pine trees bordering the beach There was another cruise ship in town. A P&O ship

Views on our walk around the volcano Kathy on the trail.

Views of the beach from the volcano trail

We were hoping to spend a little more time at the beach town but the walk around the volcano was longer than I thought so once we got to the beach we needed to find our way back to the boat as all on board was 3:30. We needed to leave at high tide because the channel we came in on was very narrow.

Sun does not set here until after 8:30. So it stays bright for awhile

A view of Mount Maunganui as we sail away. It is an extinct volcano and this was the volcano that we walked around. It did not look that big when we started the walk.

Next stop is Napier and we won’t arrive until noon.