We arrived at 6am in international terminal. It is a huge airport with moving pavements to help you reach immigration. So many people! We had a coffee to wake us up and got in a taxi to go to hotel.

We arrived there 8am and were able to take our room from then. After a shower change of clothes and a sleep, we ventured out. We are in a brand new hotel in an old area of Mongcok.

It was 11.30am and we were hungry! We headed up 3 floors in a lift to “the London restaurant” . It was packed with people being seated at any table with spare chairs.It was so noisy, they were going to seat us on a table of 4 people there already, but thought better of it, so we were taken further into this huge restaurant to a small table.

We were the only Europeans in there . No one seemed to speak English but they helped us when we ordered too much rice by mistake. The food arrived in no real order and at different times brought by different ladies. So we ate it one dish by one dish as it arrived. It was tasty and our starter soup arrived at the end. It was flavoured water with a  floating meatball dumpling which had been in there for a while and all wrinkly and pale looking. Yuk we couldn’t fancy eating it. I broke the dumpling open and there was a mixture of meats definitely a bit of chicken and the rest looked suspicious.

The streets are dirty and smelly with masses of people, lights traffic and noise. What a shock to the system in comparison with 9 weeks of hardly seeing many people on the streets and beaches in NZ.

In the evening we wandered through the heaving busy ladies market. Quite enjoyed this experience. we are definitely in a chinese area so few European faces around, quite a novelty for me to be in the minority. We were still hungry so found a pitza hut restaurant after going up 4 escalators in a shopping centre. I had lasagne and preferred this place as it was calmer and food I was used to!

We have jet lag as HongKong is 5 hours difference to NZ. We are going on a hop on off bus tour tomorrow if all goes to plan! 

Love to you all from tired weary J and V xxx

Wednesday …This is our last holiday day in NZ as we travel to Auckland to fly out to HongKong tomorrow evening. 

We split the day up into seaside and volcano/lakes,calling back at “kiwi 360” for a kiwi cheese cake and coffee. 

We followed the Pacific highway to Whakatane. It was a good drive through hilly farmland and kiwi orchards. The town was busy and had a strong Maori culture to it. There was a statue in honour of the Maori leader’s daughter out to sea. We saw many sea birds and a pair of swallows on the sea shore. There was a harbour and further out a sandbank and surfers riding the surf. On the road into town was a huge Maori house which was open to the public.

 In the afternoon we travelled inland to the lakes. We passed 5 of several large lakes near to Rotorua on the thermal highway. They looked calm and blue and inviting. 

Oh and the cheesecake was yummy!

I will add photos later as not enough wifi mbs left to do this!

Just leaving motel now to travel up to Auckland, still very hot but weather is set to change tomorrow! Weren’t we lucky xxxx

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This morning we walked all around Mount Maunganui, it dominates Tauranga and sticks right out into the harbour. There are various walks to take. Up to the top, a 3 hour return and very steep walk with 360* views or a longer walk all around the base of this volcano. Needless to say we walked around the base!

The sea was blue and so was the sky with fluffy clouds 27c today. The rocks all around are interesting shapes and forms. All solidified larva. Along the edge of the path which weaves up and down, old trees cling to the rocks and their huge roots are exposed.

There were broken shells everywhere on the paths and grassy hillsides and when we looked further they were all from a strata in the rock. They must have been under the sea at one time and the sea bed has been forced up.

This afternoon we travelled north to Waihi Beach. This area is full of fruit trees. Advocadoes, kiwi fruit,fig,oranges and lemons. This is the first area in the world where kiwi fruit was grown commercially.

Waihi Beach had golden sparkling sands and was full of shells of many types. There were only 5 of us on the huge beach, we walked along and I paddled in the South Pacific Ocean..lovely.

The route to Rotorua and then on to Tauranga was very interesting. It was called the thermal pools highway.

At various points we could see steam rising from springs in fields and from privately owned spas.

We are finding nothing is free in this area and requires a bus journey or a boat trip to view the wonders. There are geysers and salt pools, gushing waterfalls and warm thermal pools. We stopped at some mud pools. They were so funny the noise the mud made as it exploded was a “flub” sound rather than a “glug” sound!

I took some videos of the steaming mud explosions. There was a smell of sulphur but not too bad.

We passed a large area of fruit and hop growing and a kiwi fruit area. We had a salad there with kiwi fruit in it very nice. The kiwis grow like vines and hang down like grapes.

Our motel is very nice and has its own thermal pool at 33c must try it out tonight

We are right on the Bay of Plenty east coast 100 miles south of Auckland

I am sitting writing this blog by the side of Lake Taupo. We are spending all day slowly travelling around this huge lake.

It is the largest natural lake in Australasia and is contained within a huge ancient volcano. All round the lake are small volcanoes and thermal pools and steaming hillsides. It is amazing.

It is windy today and there are small waves on the lake. The black swans are being bounced up and down. I can see huge white cliffs and rounded hills formed by volcano deposits.

There are only 3 main towns around the lake…. Taupo, Kinloch and Turangi where we are based. The largest volcanoes are Mt Ruapehu, Mt Ngauruhue, Mt Tongariro, Mt Pihanga, Mt Tauhara. The national forest surrounds the area and it is on the great NewZealand Plateau. It is spectacular volcanic scenery full of native forests,bush walks and ski areas, thermal pools and waterfalls.

The Maori heritage is very much in evidence throughout this area. The whole area is very significant to the Maori.

We have just had a bit of excitement! we turned down a lane towards the lake when we saw 4 large horses running quickly towards us on the road. They slowed down before they reached us as there was a field of horses on our right and they were all excited too. 2 4 wheel drive cars managed to stop them and encourage them to return eventually to their field. Naughty horses!!

Anyway hope you like my photos. Tomorrow we travel to Tauranga via Rotorua , right across the plateau and to the sea. We will see lots of beautiful scenery on the way and intend to take it slowly stopping where we can at view points

Lovely sunny day today and we decided to head up to the volcanoes. We stopped at the view point over lake Taupo and chatted to 2 ladies who had been to all the places we had been to in South Island It was good to compare experiences. They just left Haast before the terrible rain came.

We went up the volcanic loop highway up to the ski fields. The road went up so high with fab views. At the end of the road we got on the ski lifts for half price as we are seniors! The lifts were good fun and as it was so clear we had good views all the way up. In the afternoon we went back to the lake to explore along the other side. There are fissures of steam coming from the hillsides and hot pools. We went down to the water to photo shoot wildlife. Again we had such a lovely day.

Travelling day today. The sat nav took us to Wanganui South of Hawera and then on the highway 4 so we avoided the Forgotten World Highway thankfully, it would have taken ages that way as the roads are windy and steep and not easy.

At Taumarunui we turned right on the national park over the plateau. We then found we were on the volcanic loop highway and yes MORE VOLCANOES.

One is steaming!

The lake is beautiful and we are very happy.
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Our last day in Taranaki and we visited the lake Rotorangi, I managed to photograph a blue bird with a red beak a pukeko…..

Also we got our daily fix of the volcano views

We went up the volcano roads but there was low cloud there and we couldn’t see much.

So we headed for the coast via New Plymouth where we had fun again with the mirrors on the art gallery.

we also visited the top floor of the visitors centre

we got some more views of the Cape Egmont lighthouse and the beautiful Tasmin coastline.

In the evening we walked down the lane by our motel and caught the sunset behind the volcano.

Hi we are on the way to Lake Taupo and found an Internet cafe. HOpefully we will have wifi there will post later