Day 6: Driving to Rotorua
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We ate our breakfast on the patio area of our hotel room, overlooking the ocean.
Our first stop on the way to Rotorua was Hot Water Beach, just
south of Whitianga. The ocean water was not hot, or even warm. However,
there are hot springs under some areas of the beach, and if you dig a
hole in the sand, it will fill with hot water. We contented ourselves
by digging our toes down into the sand, and cooling them off in the
ocean water when they got too hot.
Our second stop was a short walk to Cathedral Cove. The second
picture here was taken at Stingray Bay, along the walk to Cathedral
Cove. Stingray Bay only has a small limestone arch, but on the other
side of the arch...
... you see Cathedral Cove, with it's giant, peaked arch. We were
not the only ones taking shelter under the arch because it had begun to
drizzle by the time we had gotten there. (It was dry when we left 30
minutes before.) By the time we got back to the car we were moderately
wet.
Later in the day, we stopped at Tauranga for lunch, and then
decided to try a hike up Mount Maunganui (pronounced, to the best of my
understanding, "Mon-ga-NEW-y"). Mount Maunganui (232m) is situated
right on it's own peninsula on the ocean. The hike took us about 20
minutes or so, but by the time we had gotten to the top it had begun to
rain again and the rain was gradually getting heavier. At the top, we
were in the middle of a cloud and couldn't see a thing. By the time we
got to the bottom we were completely drenched. It took two days for my
shoes to dry out completely. Needless to say, we don't have any
pictures of that because, again, our camera isn't waterproof!
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