Weather juz not right for swim wear... Plenty of Bay !
After a few rainy days in Auckland, my house-mate and a few other friends praying hard to a clear day today. It's the end of Winter, the weather seem to be colder and chilling, even though it's not snowing in Auckland.
A journey of two and a half hours from Auckland, we reached Tauranga, located along the "Bay of Plenty", which has everthing we need for a ultimate holiday. From the sun, surf and seaside, hiking through magnificient native bush and the heart of Tauranga Town.

Along the journey, me and my housemates we amazed by the idyllic scenery and beautiful country side. Being a nature lover like me, this is mesmerizing... you will never seen this in Malaysia (farms, hills, rivers and fruits plantation everywhere).
But to the New Zealanders, you will never Malaysia's scenery here too.

Tauranga is one of the largest/busiest export port in NZ and it's the centre of NZ's principal kiwi fruit region. The kiwi season is normally between May to June, and too bad that we've missed it this time!

After we've checked-in for our accomodation, we head our way to Fernland Hot Spring. We immediately start up the fire and prepare our BBQ Lunch as we hardly bear the hunger although we had our breakfast before we starts our journey. All the marination was prepared by Janice & Nelson (they're really nice couple), this time our menu will be all meat, yes we wanna be carnivores this time. All I could said is "Perfect", the taste, the environment and the weather... Once we finished with the BBQ I cant wait to change to my trunks soak myself into the hot springs pool.

The following day, everyone woke up so early and pack-up things. By 10.30am we started our journey and stop by the tourist spot along the way back from Tauranga. Kiwiland at Te Puke, KatiKati (thinking of going to the Bird Garden but the luck wasn't on our side coz, it was closed), Ngatea & Paeroa (the small town that produce L&P, one of the famous Lemonade softdrink in NZ).



Mt Maunganui (the name means "Large Mountain")

It's a volcanic formation, stands at the foot of the 232m hill NZ "Surf City".It affords views of Tauranga and the surrounding area. Near the foot of the hill are fine beaches and saltwater pools. (The above photos, Left : view of the Mount from Moturiki Island, Right : view from the top of Mt Maunganui.)

Waihi Beach.....

Along the way back to Auckland we made several stops. One of it is the Waihi town, which sparkles with 100km of white sand, an enticing blue ocen and this place has held irresistible charm for us.

For more info check out this site:

• http://www.tauranga.co.nz/
• http://www.bayofplentynz.com/

Peace & Plenty - Devonport.

15 minutes of excitement in the ferry... not bcoz i've not been to ferry b4, but i'm heading my way to discover Devonport - a seaside village of historic architecture, volcanoes and landmarks as well as galleries and cafes, shops and restaurants. Oh yeah... talking bout food, we had a try of the most famous Fish & Chip in this island.

We trek our way up to Mt Victoria (maori called it Tauranguu), which gives us unobstructed views of downtown Auckland an across the harbour to the eastern bays. I was told there a tunnel in Devonport which can link to the other North Head (located less than 5km away). Sometime ago it was open for tourist to visit, several haunted experience was claimed and due to the high maintainance it was close there after. Almost reaching the top of Mt Victoria, the sky doesn't show a good sign to us, however we've almost reached to the peak so we thought must as well carry on with a few more foot steps.

It was so windy and chilling with drizzling weather, as normal reaction we just look for someplace for a shade. Guess what we saw??? A small solid steel gate which have a spiral stair case... right away silent between us! This might be the eerie tunnel which everyone been talking about. A minute later we just left and made our way down from the hill.

The peak and upper slopes have housed a signal station for shipping, artillery emplacements and various concrete army bunkers. One bunker now serves as the venue for the Devonport Folk Club.

North from Devonport coastline is an endless procession of sheltered coves and white-sand beaches which start out as suburban and become steadily more spectacular all the way to the tip of the North Island.

For more details, please visit: http://www.devonport.co.nz/