Gillon's Pacific Coast Motor Lodge Whakatane

Decided to get the local bus to Mount Maunganui. Only took about 10 mins. Kat had a little episode in the bus station. Some brats were throwing chocolate fish around the street. One just so happened to hit her in the face. She threw down her rucksak and screamed at the boys as she stomped over like a mad woman!!! At this point, I decided to hide. Bus driver kindly told us where to get off the bus for 'Pacific Coast Lodge' which is where we stayed for the night. Then we planned the walk which ...

White Island is NZ's only active marine volcano. It is situated about 75 km off the coast from Whakatane on the North Island. This is one fo the few tours I did while in NZ and it was definitely worth it. It was about a 2hr boat ride there, we had a guided walking tour, then had lunch on the boat and came back. They mined sulphur here back about 50 years ago and the last erruption was close to 10 years ago. Hope you enjoy the pics. ND

When it transpired that the kiwifruit work wasn't going to start in the immediate future, I decided to take advantage of the good weather and I headed to Thames for another one of my little excursions. The few days prior to this had been really enjoyable, as I met some cool people and generally just chilled out at the beach/hostel. Last friday night turned into a bit of an epic actually, which was unintentional to say the least! But I got talking to a guy called Andy from Birmingham, and when...

My last day at The Mount was amazing! It obviously began with the birth of my nephew, and I quickly made my way to the library to check my emails - my brother had sent some pictures. Ethan William is so cute and I made sure almost everyone at the hostel saw the photos. I even called Heather's 78 year old mum to tell her the good news, as she always used to ask about the baby on her visits to the hostel. In the afternoon, I spent a lot of time playing with Heather's 2 year old grandson - you c...

The run up to Christmas was mostly spent relaxing at the beach, or playing table tennis at the hostel. Naturally, I endured Love Actually again and watched Shallow Hal for old time's sake, although I somehow managed to avoid Vanilla Sky - wonders never cease! Shinya came round to the hostel one night for a beer, and it was great to see him again. He looked very smart with a new hairstyle, which is surprising considering Kazu was the one in charge of the scissors! I'd hoped to meet Shinya whil...

It only took 30 minutes to get from Whenuakite to Tairua, so I was there before 9am. My room wasn't ready, so I had a walk to the beach and relaxed down there for a while. It was a beautiful beach too, with large sand dunes and huge waves, and a fair number of lifeguards. I returned to the hostel at 11am to get settled, and surprise surprise, it was a lovely little place. I loved the fact that each bed had its own curtains to offer a bit of privacy, as well as a reading lamp. These little tou...

The day began badly when I tripped up getting into the airport shuttle bus - you could tell that I'd only had 3 hours sleep! Thankfully it was still dark so noone could see my maroon coloured cheeks. I was on autopilot, but I managed to get myself to Auckland without any more hiccups. There, I had to catch an altogether smaller plane for my transfer to Mount Maunganui, with just 2 aisles and 16 seats. Claudine had kindly offered to pick me up from the airport at 8.30am, and it was nice to see...