Tauranga, Mount Maunganui & Waihi Gold Mine

Last weekend we visited Tauranga, approx 2.5 hours drive south east of Auckland and the 4th largest city on the North Island with a population of approx 115K - so about the same size as Crawley!

We stayed with a lovely couple we found through AirBnb.

Some cool galleries aside, Tauranga itself was nothing too special, but the beaches were superb and the nearby Mount Maunganui well worth the visit. We walked the perimeter before scaling the summit and rewarded ourselves with a dip in the natural saltwater hot pools. There was also an american car rally going on and some beautiful cars on display - the Mustang's particularly.

Other highlights of this weekend were exploring old mining tunnels in the Karangahake gorge, bush walking at McLaren Falls and walking around a huge open cast gold mine in Waihi - 4km circumference and almost 200m deep. It's been closed down once, but reopened again recently. Probably because it generates over $1M a day in gold. Still, it is due to be closed down again soon and turned into a very deep lake. The monster trucks are even bigger up close and those tyres? $11K a pop!