Adventures of Beth and Dan: Can it be December already!!🏝

Tauranga is on the nw corner of the bay of plenty with a population of 131,000. The Main Beach is among one of the top 25% of beautiful beaches in the world. There is a shuttle bus that takes you into town. There are eateries, art galleries, and shopping. There are murals all over town. The essence of sulphur is in the air due to the hot baths and geysers that are prevalent. The film the Hobbit was filmed here and there is Hobbiton that you can visit. Sheep are important here and you can observe sheep sheering. We arrive at 7 and all aboard is 6:30 pm. The ship provides a complimentary shuttle bus.

Our tour here is in a 15 passenger van and we get there early and get off by 8:00. We did get to the van also early to get a good seat too and not wedged in the back!! Our tour is 8 hours seeing a lot. We pass the main beach where they have a huge surfing competition. The apt are between 1-3 million dollars to purchase! They all face the beach front. The Bay of Plenty stretches for about 180 miles and is beautiful. The beaches are white sand. Pohutukawa is the name of the Christmas tree that grows everywhere here. Our first stop is a geothermal park in Patuha? As we travel through town we see students in the public school wearing uniforms and it is this way in all NZ. Homes here are expensive. Gas had risen to $2 per liter. That makes it about $8 a gallon. They have a little natural gas but no oil here to drill for. Traffic here is bad with the rush hour. The city has grown more than they can keep up with. The population is about 120,000. We are in Tauriko Bay officially but headed to Rotorua. Like our other NZ port it is green, lush and clean. Our guide tells us about their earthquakes like the one at Christchurch that flattened the whole town 7 years ago. They have an earthquake fund that all who pay taxes pay into along with their personal insurance that helps. They generate electricity with hydro power, a series of large dams are in the south and a major river in the north with ten stations on one river; they have gas fires with their own natural gas, wind and then the geothermal steam in a few places. Utilities here are high. $250 per month on a house use. They have roundabouts here with traffic lights on it!!! The driver says it doesn’t work. They are putting in tunnels in some places to reduce traffic congestion. Here there are very few motorcycles and our guide says they are mostly recreational. They are now building bike and walking paths and hope to have them across the country. It is a 20 year plan to establish this and they are making good progress. After 40 min in the road we still have slow moving traffic :(. The driver is a little frustrated. The two main agricultural crops here are Kiwi and avocados. Most all Kiwi fruit is grown behind wind shelters. They don’t have fall color change here as other places do. Everything remains green. A home in the country with 50 acres could sell for 2.5 million dollars!! Beef, lamb and dairy have been their prime exports but now tourism has taken over as their number one export earner. They have 2.5 million people living here and 3 million tourists came last year to visit!! 95 % of the agricultural products are exported.

Most farms don’t have barns for their cattle or sheep because the weather is so mild. They have a low cost production system. The area we are going to Te Puia is known for many fresh water lakes which formed from volcanic activity.

In many towns the mail is still delivered by bicycle! I bigger towns they use a cart much like a golf cart that is small and compact.

The Te Puia was very interesting seeing some of the history and culture of the Maoris along with the geysers!! We spent about an hour there with our guide. The crafts and carvings were beautiful. I could have spent more time there. We saw the Tui bird and heard lots along with many we heard but couldn’t identify.

Next we head to Rainbow Springs which is a Maori Cultural Center and where we have lunch. We are anxious to see the Kiwi birds that they have here. The sky cleared and we have sunshine now. Our time there went too fast. We got there about 11:30 and had to leave by 1:30. We quickly ate lunch and then started exploring. A lot of the park is under construction and on top of that there were about four bus loads of high school kids! The cages are rather small and we were never able to see the Kiwi because they are in a dark enclosure. If they stay away from the few lights you really can’t see them. We got there after all the kids had been there and scared them back into the dark :( but a fellow passenger shared a few of his photos. We hurried through all sections and got back to the bus at the right time. It began to rain which we were expecting. Traveling through Rorotura we saw some of their beach side and public buildings. Some affected by the earthquakes were being shored up and were closed to the public. Our next stop will be a Kiwi 🥝 farm :) if it isn’t raining too much or he can take us to a manuka honey store. We learned they grow green and yellow kiwi and did some sampling and they were excellent. Some folks got ice cream made from the Kiwi. They had beautiful farms there and very clean and organized. Our last stop was the Manuko honey shop. We also did some taste sampling and looked at their store. They sell all kinds of vitamins and supplements “Comvita” is the name of the store. They even sell honey bandaids with a honey cream that is on the bandaid when you apply it. We didn’t purchase anything but enjoyed the stop.

Hot springs and cultural center