Mt Maunganui
After my spa session in Waihi Beach I thought I should go and get some more steps in again so we finally left the Coromandel and made our way through the city of Maunganui. I didn’t like it. I’d enjoyed such a quiet area for the last week or so and to be back on busy roads and in a busy city made me a little flustered. I decided to drive right through the busy bits and find the recommended area where all the surfers and cool people hang out over at Mt Maunganui.
There was definitely a lot of cool people around, maybe I didn’t fit in here either, but I parked up and got a little day bag of walking goodies ready so I was more prepared than previous walks. I headed towards the Mt, with no intention of actually climbing it but rather having a nice gentle stroll around it instead. The walk was lovely, with the sea waves crashing into the rocks just below, and trees hanging over the bath with wind swept branches making it look like I was in both forest and sea. After half an hour I came across some stairs, which for some reason I decided I would climb. Turns out I went the steepest possible way up to the summit. I was using both my arms to help me climb up some of the big steps as they were obviously made for giants. The further I went up the more the wooden steps disappeared into the rocks and roots took over, which was pretty cool but I thought it best to not look down behind me. After 40 minutes I reached what I thought was the summit, but no not quite! I stopped to look out and admire the views (whilst trying to breath like a normal person and not sound like someone blowing up an airbed).
Finally, I got up to the top and downed my blue Powerade. There were some people running up that weren’t breathing as loudly or looked as sweaty as me so that was pretty humbling. I was still pretty happy with my self though and enjoyed the views all around with a big smile on my face. It’s a great feeling doing something you don’t think you can. I stopped on my way down at the fake summit to read my book, ‘Tough Women Adventure Stories’ by Jenny Tough, a nice collection of stories from some pretty incredible women. I fancied a loop so added another few kms on to my walk and went down and roan the other side which took me past some lush green fields and plenty of sheep poop. When I got down to the bottom I popped into a busy looking ice cream shop where I had the best ice cream I might have thought I ever tasted (I can’t even remember what flavour it was but it was the perfect treat).
The sun was getting low so I went to find a campsite, found a Tasman in Papamoar a bit further down where I stayed a couple nights. I spent a whole day doing nothing but watching Yellowstone, reading, wrtiting and snoozing. It was awesome, but did leave me feeling like I’d wasted the day a little despite it being rainy again so I went for a little flip flop walk along the beach. There was a small gap in the grey clouds that allowed me to see the orange and red sunset dip behind Mt Maunganui. I even got up early enough to watch the sunrise, it was so good that I went out to open my doors and watch it from my bed with a cup of tea before making a plan to my next location.
