Mt. Maunganui & Tauranga

We depart our little abode in Whitianga and head to the north around the tip of the Coromandel Peninsula, stopping intermittantly along the way.  We arrive in the town of Coromandel and find it to be quite cute.  We walk along the sidewalk and buy some snacks to take along in the car while window shopping at the various boutiques.  We also pop into a bookstore and make the most of the available facilities.  We continue on along the highway which hugs the coasts in twists and turns.  One place we stop is by the side of the road near the town of Thames where we walk along a rocky beach.  Sam, Hudson and I skip stones into the water. Sam wins with a skip of 7 times....our lucky number. It is very interesting to see how far out the tide will actually go.....it almost looks like you can walk to the other side of the land.  We get back into our car and head into the town of Thames where we have lunch at a Thai Cafe.  It is one of the nicer lunches we have had recently.  After lunch, we stroll through before hitting the road again. Onward and upward, we are under way again for about 2 hours before we come into the town of Tauranga.  Again, we have no booking for this evening so we are on the hunt.  It is about 5:30 and we drive in the direction of Mount Maunganui where we have heard there are some nice Holiday Parks (our newest best friend).  We arrive in the center of town and ask where there might be a park and are told to follow the road around.  We find this town to be very touristy, busy and noisy and we are a bit unaccustomed to all of the hub-bub.  We go to the office and find out that they don't have what we are looking for, but the lady offers to call another Holiday Park in the town of Tauranga.  She tells us they have availability and gives us directions to their place.  Somehow we find it and get checked in for three nights.  It has become apparent that the kids are really getting weary of our travels and we need to take a day or two to chill out and regenerate.  We get directions to the grocery store and stock up on goodies for our cabin, come home, make dinner and enjoy a restful evening.