Garden Ramblings: Mount Maunganui

For our last week in New Zealand, we rented a large vacation home in Mt. Maunganui, and invited all of our New Zealand friends to come and be our guests, as we have been their guests for these many years! Mt. Maunganui is just beautiful - it's a peninsula on the Bay of Plenty with long, sandy beaches on the ocean side, and a harbor deep enough for cruise ships to dock on the harbor side. Think Hawaii - without millions of people!

We had the house from Tuesday to Monday, and almost everyone was able to make it for at least a part of the time.

We returned from Napier on Monday, and on Tuesday John collected us (yet again!) and drove us to Mt. Maunganui to get the keys to the house and check in. After meeting Coralie and getting the keys, we headed off to the grocery store to provision for the week. We had a menu and a grocery list all ready, so it didn't take long. Then it was back to the house, carry all the groceries upstairs and put them away, and wait for our first guests to arrive!

First to arrive on Tuesday was John's sister, Billie. Shortly thereafter, Stephen and Craig arrived from Auckland, and Stephen's Mum, Agnes was with them. There were 7 of us for dinner on Tuesday night. It was also Stephen's birthday, and we celebrated with cake and champagne, and lots of toasts to Stephen.

Jo and Richard arrived on Wednesday, and then we were 9. Due to a prior commitment, Jo had to go home on Thursday and Craig and Stephen headed off to Craig's brother's batch further down the east coast. We were down to 5, but Billie's son, Marc, who lives in the area came for a visit, and stayed for dinner.

On Friday, Bryan, Peter, Jo, Dianne, Adrian, Chris and Geoff all arrived after work. We had a wonderful houseful! Friday was Chris and Geoff's 16th wedding anniversary, so we had dessert and champagne after dinner for them, and it was great to be able to share in the celebrations.

The weather was fabulous all week, and everyone took advantage of it to go to the beach, for long walks, visit the shops, swim in the hot pools, soak in the hot tub in the back yard and just generally blob! We were able to eat outside all but one night, and the bar-b-que got a good workout!

On Saturday night we all walked around Mt. Maunganui and found a vantage point to watch the Princess cruise ship sail through the bay and out to sea. It's a pretty narrow channel and they sail at high tide, so we were all there to wave them on and collectively wish that we were on board!

Sunday everyone headed home, at various times during the day, and soon it was just John, Lee and I. But Craig and Stephen stopped in and had dinner with us on their way back to Auckland, so that made the house seem less empty and sad.

It was so much fun to just hang out with everyone. It was like all of us being on vacation - no one felt the need to do anything but just relax and enjoy.

But, all good things come to an end, and Monday found us packing up and heading back to Hamilton (thank you, John!), to get packed and head off to the airport to hopefully get on a 7:30 pm flight to San Francisco. The flights were looking good, so we were cautiously optimistic!
Good bye, Mt. Maunganui - see you next year!

This picture doesn't really show how big the house is, but it's a tri-level with 6 bedrooms - sleeps 12!

Looking across the bay to Tauranga, from the walk around Mt. Maunganui

Looking out to sea! The track around the Mount is 4.3 km's, so it's a nice little walk, with spectacular scenery!

Richard and John, taking a break on the walk.

Some of the rocks around the Mount. The water is amazingly clear there.

This is one of my favorite places on the Mount! That beach isn't covered with sand - it's covered with millions and millions of sea shells! You are literally walking on them! It's a beach comber's paradise!

Happy Anniversary, Chris and Geoff!

Opening cards.

Richard and John, enjoying their afternoon G&T! Note their fancy hats!

Here we all are - heading around the Mount so that we can watch the cruise ship in the background sail. Another beautiful day!

The Princess cruise ship

Our viewing spot!

Peter, Chris and Geoff, waiting for the ship.

Here she comes! As you can see, there were quite a few people doing the same thing that we were!

Isn't she beautiful?? Don't you wish you were on board?? We did!

Waving to all of the passengers on deck who were waving to us!

Our chef! Lee was bar-b-qing our steaks. Due to watching the ship sail, we were eating dinner at an hour that would have been appropriate in Spain! The good news is that everyone was starving, so everything was delicious!! : )

G & T's around the picnic table.

Rub-a-dub-dub, three people in the tub!

Ok, how many people CAN we get in here? There are 8 in this picture, but Lee got in, and Richard, who took this picture also got in! Needless to say, the water level rose dramatically and we had waterfalls all around the hot tub! But it was a blast, and a great way to end our last night with everyone at Mt. Maunganui.