Bright and early this morning, well ok, just early, we set out at 7am on our walk up Mt Maunganui with Jeanette. 🙂

Here’s the elevation of the walk. I didn’t expect it to be so high!

Approaching the start, Jeanette, Noel and Peter.

Peter went for a walk around the Mount while we went up to the top.

🙂

Noel and Jeanette at the top.

Me and Jeanette at the top.

Tauranga central.

On the way down there were fewer steps and Jeanette broke into a run. All I can say is that I was glad Noel and I had trained for the Timber Trail cycle and the Tongariro Crossing. We hadn’t done any running since November but the cycling and walking had helped!

Brighter now the sun has risen.

After that we went back, sorted ourselves out and had breakfast.

Jeanette kindly made us some lunch to have at Taupo.

It was a fun stay and we left in time to visit my friend Christine Ross (whose B&B I stayed at 10 years ago) for 10am coffee and cake with her and Les Munro.

We had a lovely time there and Christine’s cheese scones were delicious. 🙂

We left with information from Les as to a good route to Rotorua. After saying our goodbyes we drove to Rotorua (Les’s route was faster than the one we had planned) and thence to Taupo where we had our lunch.

We think we saw Jan Chisum flying her Gipsy Moth between Rotorua and Taupo. The timings fitted (we found out after chatting with her).

From Taupo we drove to Napier. As we approached the hills it started to rain heavily and then we realised the driver’s side windscreen wiper was coming apart!! 😯

For those not familiar with the area, the road is very winding and you really don’t want that to happen in that area! There aren’t convenient shops and sometimes (shock, horror) there is no mobile signal!! 😮

The first repair, putting a connector back in place, didn’t last so we pulled over a second time. Luckily we had our things with us from being away for 11 days so we found some cloth plasters which we cut up and stuck the offending part together and it stayed stuck through all the rain!

Having effected a decent repair we got to Napier and had a drink. 🙂