- the hike (just 45 minutes) around the base of Mount Maunganui, where the shoreline reminded me very much of what one might see on the south shore of Nova Scotia;
View from base walk of Mauao,
reminds me of NS
- the Papamoa hills, with my hosts Annie and Tony. Papamoa is the next community south of the Mount and there's a whole network of trails there;
- the Te Puna Quarry Park, with Marty, the friend of a friend from Wolfville. What a great spot. It's maintained by a group of volunteers, who have added many plants and shrubs and created quite a magical little park. One could easily spend half a day exploring all the paths they have developed. And the park is full of wonderful sculptures, with no indication how they came to be there.
Since there is little else to "report", thought this would be the time to mention a few things I forgot about before:
- the temperature: it's been ideal, highs of about 23 to 26, and lows in the range of 15. So the evenings are generally cool. It rained heavily last night (excellent timing) but the locals have been hoping for rain, as it's been unusually dry here.
- ice cream: I've had lots! I've discovered a new flavour, Hokey Pokey. Wikipedia says it is unique to New Zealand, and the most popular flavour here. Vanilla with honeycomb chunks. Who knew??
- property division: back in Canada, when a property is split, in my experience it's generally done so both pieces have street frontage. But here it is quite different, at least here in the Mount. It's common for properties to subdivide, because of the value of the land, but it's done creating one behind the other. A driveway provides access to the property in behind.
Split property, one home behind the other
