My Mt Maunganui Holiday

Hi there

After my three nights in New Plymouth, I tootled across the North Island to Mt Maunganui (about 6 hours).  My car windshield developed a crack so I had to book for and get a new windscreen while I was on holiday.
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Because I was right slap dab in the middle of my fifth head cold this year, I just went through the motions of Doing Holiday Things, and I felt pretty awful.  I sun-bathed, shopped, walked, swam.  I walked around The Mount of Mt Maunganui - there'd been some wash-out of the track some time back and to get around that washout, I had to climb 7 flights of steps.  When I got back to Wellington, and was watching tv, I saw that the flat route around The Mount had just been re-instated that day.  Grrrh, missed it by four days.

I went over to Ohope/Whakatane for the day. Went to my favourite Ohiwa Bay Oyster Farm and had a dozen fried oysters - yum, my fave.  Then I went to Julian's Berry Farm and and had a huge strawberry ice cream sundae.  And I shopped my little heart out.

I did get lost getting into Mt Maunganui and ended up going up and down the toll  Expressway twice.  Road workers at two roundabouts had taken down all direction notices.  Boooo....

 above:  Mount Maunganui.  Pilot Bay. I swam here twice a day.

above:  So many cruise ships come in to Mount Maunganui.  I was staying at Westshore Motel right opposite Pilot Bay (photo taken from my motel doorway) and I watched all the tankers, cruise ships, paddle-boarders jet-skis, yachts, kayaks, wakas...
The motel was so gloriously from the 1960's, I adored the place. Extremely clean, with wonderful owners.  Pilot Bay usually gets picnic-ers, families, swimmers.  Around the corner is Main Beach that gets surfers, lifeguards, boogie boarders, bikini beauties, young guys ogling bikini beauties, cafes where folk like to sit outside and be seen....