Mount Maunganui

After lunch, we were back in the bus headed to the Pacific Ocean (east coast). We stopped at McLaren Falls for a very chilly dip. Very. This was quite different from other waterfalls I've visited. The water patiently trickled through giant boulders, many of which had been "bowled." That's almost certainly not the word for it since I just made it up, but the rocks had bowl-shaped crevices in them, from espresso cup sized ones to ones Andre the Giant could use as a lounge chair. The ones you could see under the water looked like deep, dark and perfectly round holes that could swallow you up. It was beautiful in an odd way.

After that we arrived in the beach town of Mount Maunganui, named for the extinct volcano on its shore. I saw an Irish pub as we.drove to the hostel, so after checking in and dumping my bags, I made a beeline there with my fingers crossed for Kilkenny beer on tap. Yay!!!! They had it, and so did I!

A quick stroll in the beach at sundown, then I was back in the hostel for some food, reading, and sleep. Nice day.

This morning started off terrible. I was first awake at 03:33, but able to get back to sleep until about 05:30, when my brain turned on. Yuck. I stayed in bed, though, finally getting up around 8. Checkout was at 10:00 and we met the Stray bus driver to put our bags in the bus so we didn't have to carry them around until we left at noon.

I walked along the beach and pretty little Moturiki Island, then grabbed some lunch. Now, I'm hopping back on the short bus to go back to Rotorua. Mount Maunganui is a pretty cool place in which I could definitely spend more time.

So long [for now] and thanks for all the KILKENNY 🍺!!! ✌️Read more