Livermore New Zealand: Mount Maunganui

Sunday December 18th:

Today was rainy and dark all day. We got up and got ready to go before an awesome breakfast with the Hawleys. We then took off from Hahei for Mount Maunganui. It was a horribly windy road; constant turns and up and down, this way and that way type of ride, and we had to stop a few times for motion sickness. We decided to stop in Waihi (about half way to our new town) and visit their gold mining museum and see the current gold mine. The museum was pretty interesting, especially on a rainy day. They had a few hands on exhibits. The kids loved the model of the giant crushers that smashed up the rocks. We then stocked up on groceries (including our new morning staple-Weet-Bix-it is like Wheeties in that NZ kids eat it to go big and strong. The All Blacks (Rugby) are the spokesmen. It is actually a loaf of cereal that is a distant cousin of a large shredded wheat) and checked into the Cutterscove Cove Apartments/condo building. It was nice because it had a full kitchen and laundry. The laundry here is ho-ho-horrible. You can wash like two pieces at a time and then it comes out sopping wet. The driers basically heat the heck out of them so you have hot and wet clothes! It is tough with our three dirt magnets! Everyone was tired so we just watched some TV and let it rain. It stormed all night and our Dolphin Safari was canceled for tomorrow but rescheduled for the 20th.

A gray day to travel.

Gold Mining Museum

Tara heading into the mine for work.

The current gold mine-a little more open!

Monday December 19th:

Today was a beautiful day. The boys and I checked out the beach just a few yards from our hotel. Mount Maunganui is a very busy place, but very nice and still quaint. It was really the first town we saw with some Christmas decorations-the Kiwi's don't really seem to celebrate it much. Maybe it is the whole summer thing? There were a lot of people out at the beach for that early. We saw a puffer fish on shore and a snail which the kids thought was cool.

Cutterscove Apartments

The beach across the street-Mount Maunganui, in the background.

Gabe on the beach.

Poor Puffy.

We then had a nice breakfast before heading out for Mount Maunganui itself. Although not a massive mountain, we spent the next several hour climbing up to the top. We were rewarded with a ton of great views and even saw some sheep at the end. The kids were rightfully proud to reach the top. We decided to take a more narrow but scenic path down. It was great but treacherous after the rains.

Mount Maunganui is in the background.

Working our way up, need a little rest.

Up!

Up Up!

Making progress.

With a burst of energy, Gabe races forward.

It is taller than it looks! We are looking down, 3/4 of the way up.

Getting close to the top, Ursula and Tara take a break.

We took the scenic way down-very pretty.

There are sheep and cows tucked everywhere. There was a small flock of sheep at the bottom of the mountain right in the middle of the city.

A swim at the pool!

After our climb we had a swim in the pool before eating steak on the grill. The beef here is surprisingly good-the cows are grass fed here.

Next we headed to Kiwifruit 360 and its trademark giant kiwi fruit slice. This was a fun place where we got to tour the three types of kiwi they grow here on the Bay of Plenty. The tour consists of getting on a giant kiwi shapped bus and tottering along. We learned lots of interesting fact about what was initially th chinese goosberry. Apparently, this area of NZ is ideally suited to grow kiwi fruit with its mix of sun, rain, a few chills etc. We were able to walk under the kiwi fruit vines of both the gold and green variety. The green are 80% because they last longer for shipping around the world. The small "cherry" or grape like kiwi is only 2% of their crop because it doesn't last long off the vine (and tastes horrible). Apparently, the kiwi fuirt was rated as the #1 healthy fruit and they were quite proud. The kids have grown to really love kiwi fruit and it is abundantly available everywhere. Other fruits and veggies are not. We were able to find some small CA red grapes and oh, did they taste awesome.