To Ferry Landing
Our two night stay in Rotorua was over and after breakfast, I again packed the car and started our journey, but first there was one place to visit in Rotorua, we left it till this morning as it was on our way out of town, the lookout high above the town and lake. This was easy for mum to visit as it used a cable car or skyway to take visitors from the bottom all the way to the top, where we planned to have our morning coffee.
The views from the gondola going up were superb and gave us a clear view over the town and lake without the smell of Sulphur. We could see all the hot spots where steam was being vented from the earth.
After we had our morning coffee we returned down the hill to our car and drove to the “Bay of Plenty” at “Tauranga” and “Mount Maunganui,” then turning north along the coast noting that the beaches here had sand, which was good to walk on, but they were still not the “Surf” beaches I was accustomed to seeing in Sydney, here the sea was flat, there was not a wave for a person to ride a Surfboard on, not that we saw anyone with a Surfboard, or anyone swimming for that matter!
The road soon left the coast and again went slightly inland after we left “Whangamata,” where we stopped for lunch, returning briefly at Pavanui, before again leaving the coast. By the time we saw the sign that intrigued all of us, we were looking for a place to stay for the night.
The sign was to “Hot Water Beach,” so we turned off onto that road and followed it to the end (missing the 2nd sign to “Hot Water Beach”), finally ending at Cook’s Beach and Ferry Landing on Mercury Bay, where we booked into a motel as it was now getting dark.
We had our dinner and Carolann and I went for a walk, leaving my mother to rest. Ferry Landing is not very big or a busy place so it was safe to walk on the road in the evening, we first followed the road to the end where there is an actual ferry landing, to take people across the river, we then returned to the motel for a good night sleep!
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