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| Our hotel at Hicks Bay |
Tauranga is a city of 120,000, New Zealand’s busiest port with petrol refineries and transfers of coal and lumber. It has also become a tourist site with its fine beaches, good restaurants and the easily climbable Mt. Maunganui. We had an excellent dinner at a new restaurant and interesting conversations with our waiter. It wasn’t terribly busy on this Sunday evening. The next morning we headed off to Hicks Bay after touring the downtown area and waterfront. They are working to make this area even more attractive. The original design left a grassy area along the river with an esplanade and businesses open to the waterfront. The only problem might be the train that runs along the esplanade, but as we drove through traffic was light and the train nowhere to be seen. It appears there are enough crossings to eliminate this as a problem.
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| More of the same |
Our 180 mile drive to Hicks Bay was similar to yesterday’s. We had lots of rain and no breaks in the clouds anywhere. One of the recommended stops is to visit New Zealand’s only active volcano on White Island. We aren’t even sure we could see it through the fog and clouds. We really did not make any other memorable stops as we enjoyed the beaches and hillsides we passed along the way. We arrived at our hotel about 4:30 well above the village of Hicks Bay. We had a good view of the ocean and the village from our room. I did walk the grounds and managed to see my first kingfisher here in the South Pacific. Australia has several colorful kingfishers, but we missed them all other than the Kookaburra. New Zealand has only one. The sacred kingbird is a beautiful turquoise color with a white breast making it quite a striking specimen.
I had hoped to rise early in the morning to see the first sunrise of the day. About one hour from our hotel is the East Cape Lighthouse. A good climb to the light puts one at the spot where you can first see the sunrise each day. This is a technical thing since it depends on the fact that the International Dateline is just east of New Zealand so this is where the new day dawns. Unfortunately, the forecast was for rain, rain, and more rain, so I did not set the alarm for 4:00 am to have time to make the drive and the hike.
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| Lovely place to be buried along the coast |
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| Anglican church along the coast at Waihau Bay |
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