Visiting Tauranga on the North of the North Island of New Zealand 2020/Carlos Pueblo

Visiting Tauranga on the North of the North Island of New Zealand 2020/Carlos Pueblo

The ship reached Tauranga on the next day morning after leaving Napier overnight. The map is shown like an arm making a fist, both sides of the arm shape island are beautiful beaches with white sand and the fist part is a small hill 232 meters to the summit. I easily decided to hike from the port along with one side  of the beach toward the fist part of the mountain. It was early in the morning yet still some gathering of beach goers. A series of huge trees like the American Pines caught my eyes. Two locals with a Christian mission on the side of the walking path answered my question that trees were planted at the time of town building; therefore, 50 years of age at most. They are huge that almost required three grown up arms to arms to cover the trunk. I had had a bible discussion with these two Jehovah Witness like missionary wherever in the corner of the world. They are devoted Christians. What I mentioned was a story of a day Jesus was thirsty and asked a woman for a buck of well water and the living water thereafter.

On the side of the entrance, there is a camping ground for the recreational vehicles which are more like the scenery of the North American camping ground. Those RV are larger than the compact size of utility vehicles on the beach of Napier. I got myself ready and followed a group local seniors hiking on a service road around and up to the summit of Mount Maunganui, or Mauao. My experience is that the service road is flater the mountain steps yet takes more time to cover the route. It is designed to let the 4 wheel drive vehicle to go up and down to do the maintenance. The mountain is full of red flowers trees called bottle brush. It is much larger than our Texas dwarf species in the front yard garden. The flower shape is unique with red tread like petal like a bottle brush. I could have a very good view on every corner of the roadside to see the near islands across the bay.

Fellow tourists on the way down were keeping on encouraging us that there was only five minutes left to the top yet actually took more time. I had to take several brakes and encouraged myself that I should be able to make it. I saw one middle age man fell twice on the way down due to slippery path with a difficulty to get up. This was why I decided to change route by the ladder steps down, easier and faster yet required a pair of good knees. On the summit, there had been many people gathering already to see around. We could see around 360 degree over the area. On my second trip up to the same summit, my hiking partner ,Professor Susan of Laredo, Texas, pointed to a far away island strip with a smoke cloud behind that was the White Island where a life volcano erupted with  17 casualty. The cruise ship was on the pier in front of us some days before. Someone on a dinner table broke out the tragedy news. That smoke is still raising slowly and I don't believe any more excursion would dare to follow. It reminds me one day of our visit to the Sakura Volcano far away from a park at Kagoshima, Japan on the south of Kyushu Island.

On my way down, I ran into Lily and her daughter again by an observation post, she was very surprised for my effort to make the hiking. They live in Sydney, Australia. They did come to visit their other sibling in Houston attending Rice University later after I finish my second back of the cruise. The other side of the arm shape beach was busy when I passed by. There is a residential section which I passed by in order to be back to the ship. It is like the new subdivision in Houston, very nice and elegant.