I know that I’ve mentioned several times that the weather in New Zealand was wonderful, especially in light of the fact that it was minus 30 degrees at home. But today was the day that it really hit home. We were hiking through tropical forests and walking barefoot along the beach and … well you get the idea.

Mount Maunganui was at the top of my list. There are a number of paths up and around the the mount with varying degrees of difficulty.

This is the easy path that winds around the base of the mount with views of the sea.

And then there were the more challenging paths to the summit. The path started out relatively manageable…

But then it got … interesting.

It was challenging, but the views were stunning.

Along the way, the vegetation was lovely.

And the trees growing out of the rocks were inspiring.

There were also a few trees that were clinging to eroding cliffs. We came across a few trees that came down during the recent storms. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the same thing happening to these trees in the future. But hopefully…

And after Mount Maunganui there was the beach. We could walk barefoot along the beach for hours. Come to think of it, we did walk along the beach for hours.

It is Jan’s happy place.