Friday 20th July

Left Rotorua after being rained out and unable to do the Zorbing and headed for Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty on the East Coast. This is a lovely big city with lots of shops and dining, this is where we were meeting up with Kerry and Nicole (who we met in Fiji)

We spent Friday night at the house with beer and pizza ( Mel thought she was in heaven!!)

Saturday 21st July

Saturday morning we took a drive over to Mount Maunganui this area is full of cafes and bars and really nice it has a harbour on one side and the Tasman Sea on the other. While we were there we decided to climb Mt Maunganui (761ft) this was pretty hard going and took us around 1 hour to get to the top. The views were really good and you could see quite far, on the way back down the weather really changed quickly and we got soaked. By the time we got back to the bottom our legs were really wobbly and we decided that enough was enough and we headed home for a coffee and a danish, so Mel could start her Harry Potter book!!!!

We were treated to a Roast Lamb dinner with mint sauce and Kumara (like sweet potato) it was superb and reminded us of home, needless to say we had a few beers and tequila while watching the All Blacks beat Australia.

Sunday 22nd July

We have had such a nice weekend with Kerry and Nicole and we cannot thank them enough for their hospitality and the great food, and the comfy bed!!! It was a shame we could only stay 2 days.

Once the goodbyes were over we headed south to Lake Taupo via Te Puke (the kiwi fruit capital) and the other stop that we made was at Huka Falls (which translates as foam)

The Lake at Taupo reminds us of Lake Windermere and is huge,there is plenty of things water related to do here but we are going to use it as a stop off before heading further out to Palmerston North then Wellington

Lots of Love

M & M