Silja: Bay of Plenty

 There is at least one thing we had plenty of during our time travelling along the Bay of Plenty: RAIN!

This area is famous for its beaches, either because they are popular with surfers or because of thermal activity. If you dig a hole in the sand around low tide at Hot Water Beach, it will fill up with warm water that you can sit in. We were there at the completely wrong time and in completely the wrong weather. Under Axel’s frowns I dug anyway – with no luck.

We drove on to Tauranga, which turned out to be a surprisingly big and vibrant city, ideal for shopping. (Axel hated it...shopping that is). That day the Dutch community was supposed to have a Santa-Claus-Parade, which was cancelled due to all the rain. What a shame! Maybe that could have given us that Christmas-feeling that we are lacking so completely...  The kids have advent calendars with snowy motives on them, but one does just not make the connection since it is around 20°C despite the rain.

We spent the night in Mount Maunganui, a great holiday destination on a spit just outside Tauranga at the foot of a dormant volcano and with sandy beaches on both sides. This area was badly hit by the Rena oil spill and we could still smell but hardly see any signs of it. We did not see any wildlife either, though. Dolphins, seals and small penguins are said to inhabit the area around the volcano. What we did find were some big Paua shells on the shores along the base track going around Mount Maunganui, which gave us a feeling of achievement and some great memories to take home. Lisa really had an eye for these shells that often were wedged between rocks and half buried in the sand.

We drove further along the Bay of Plenty – in the rain. We found a great spot to camp at the huge Kohioawa Beach. It was quite deserted, since there is only the beach, a strip of dunes, a railroad, the road and then steep, densely forested cliffs. We had found one of very few places where it was possible to cross the railroad.

The next morning the layer of clouds lifted more and more until we found ourselves bathing in the roaring sea and building castles in the sand. The weather forecast had been wrong!

Around noon we felt that it was time to get out of the sun and we drove on toward Rotorua via Kawerau. Kawerau seems completely dominated by the huge Tasman Pulp & Paper Mill. This is where many of the logging trucks that I mentioned earlier were heading – and what does it say at the gate? NORSKE SKOG!

We did not make it to Rotorua that day, because Lake Rotoma, the first of many lakes in this area, was so inviting with crystal clear water and a sandy shoreline, that we stopped to give our new snorkelling gear a go. I was surprised how quickly Lisa and Niklas worked out how to do it. Mind you, they had been sitting in the car practising to breathe through the snorkel for days, waiting for a chance to try it for real. Niklas is not really a confident swimmer yet, but he can swim under water and the snorkel solves the problem of breathing. He would confidently snorkel out into the lake, almost forgetting that he actually cannot swim or stand out there… Luckily he found his dad to cling on to.