We are in greater Tauranga area but docked in Mount Maunganui village – a tourist peninsula with beaches on both sides and a large mountain at the end. This is an ideal location for tours to hot springs and other adventures appropriate before reaching our final destination of Auckland. However since we will have a number of days in the Auckland area we just wanted to enjoy this area today.

We were told that climbing the Mauro mountain could be challenging but its paved most of the way and would take about an hour, so up we went. It was a tiring at times but there was a lot of people to laugh with along the way. The views were great We came down on the other side of the peninsula and had a snack and rested before heading back for lunch.

Since it was a warm day I wanted to finally swim in New Zealand waters so we headed to the beach and I had a nice swim in the calmer side of the town. Dirk headed back to the boat while I found places with internet so I could hopefully catch up with the blog.