Tauranga & Mount Maunganui

We left Auckland for the last time (sniff - Ciaran/at last! - Elaine!) after our car trouble and headed towards Tauranga on the east coast.

Tauranga is a smallish town on a lovely bay right beside Mount Manganui and the drive there from Auckland was really lovely with the sun setting and wide open roads - feels great to be out of the city. The hostel was fairly packed with loads of people who are working there at the moment picking kiwi fruit. They bring home bags and bags of them after every shift, there was one girl there who must've ate about 20 kiwi's in a row, then she proceeded to make kiwi jam I thought she was going to turn into one by the end of the night. Were not complaining though cause we were given a big bag of free kiwis - keep us healthy for a week or so!

We spent the morning walking up the Mount from where you can see some beautiful views of the beaches and surrounding coastline. The colour of the sea over here is just breathtaking. We had a nice picnic and then just back to the 'Just the Ducks Nuts' hostel for a chilled out evening.