When we were in Mount Maunganui in 2023, the thing that we were the least excited about was the restaurants. They were good, but they weren’t great. We had much better luck this time, with excellent meals two nights in a row. Last night as we were finishing up dinner, an Australian family sitting next to us was trying to take a selfie of the full table. We offered to take the picture for them, so of course, they offered to take our picture as well.

We chatted briefly and mentioned that we were Canadian, which sparked a very interesting discussion. More about that in a later post…

While we were eating dinner, we were looking at his sign on the restaurant wall. How could you say no?

Our next stop is Waihi in the Coromondal. It’s an easy drive, so after we loaded the car and checked out, we headed for the beach. The tide was out, so you can see just how wide and shallow the beach is. When I took this picture, I was standing on the high tide mark, and the beach continues inland another 50 feet of so beyond that point. By the way, if you look very closely, you can see Jan standing beside the rocks, to give you a sense of scale.

In case you are having difficulty spotting Jan in the previous picture, here is an expanded view.

We just walked barefoot along the beach. And walked, and walked. We walked a good two km before we turned around and headed back to the car. We were taking our time, but the wind, the sun, and the sand all combined to give us lots of exercise for the day.

Here are a few more pictures showing Jan walking in the surf and looking for sea shells.

Then it was on the road. We arrived in Waihi in time for lunch before checking into our hotel. We can’t walk to the beach from here, but it’s a short ten minute drive. We plan to head there tomorrow morning, and then check out some of the scenery and hikes in the afternoon. This is forestry and gold mining country, so it has a different look.

I’ll close with a random picture as I was out walking in town this afternoon.