On the road again…..

Ended our time in Ahipara and bid goodbye to Helen and a wonderful home. We really enjoyed our time here and the views were magnificent, but time to move on and see what else the North Island has for us.

We fired up Carmen, who assured us she would get us directly to Tauranga without any issues, and began our 6hr drive. Sounds like a long time to be on the road but this is a fairly big country and if you want to see much of it, you’ll need to sacrifice a little time.

Not too bad of a drive. Carmen almost made it without giving us wrong directions but once we hit Auckland, she just had to do something. Instead of keeping us on Hwy 1 south which takes you about half the way there, she rerouted us to downtown Auckland. Not sure why, but we took the exit and ended up about 1 block from the CBD and a real mess of construction. Fortunately, Collette was quick to try to reroute us to Tauranga and we skated by the majority of traffic back onto Hwy 1 south.

Tauranga is a coastal town known for its beaches and as a key vacation destination for Kiwis. Its also home to one of New Zealand’s busiest shipping ports. We aren’t in Tauranga proper, instead we rented an apartment on the Mount Maunganui spit, more of a vacation area than downtown.

Once again, nice place. The apartment is located in a complex of apartments called “The Atrium”, along a quiet street that ends at the base of Mt. Maunganui. This 2 bedroom, 1 bath will do just fine for our 4-day stay.

Living room and kitchen

Master

Essential room

2nd bedroom

Kitchen view of living room

The Atrium complex

Unpacked our things and got laundry started, always one of the first things we do in case there are drying problems, then headed out for something to eat.

Beautiful downtown Mt. Maunganui

What New Zealand is all about!

The Wife’s favorite; green-lip mussels. Yummy!

The perfect tree!