Tauranga. How do you pronounce that?

Trip Start Sep 05, 2007
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Trip End May 01, 2008


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Flag of New Zealand  ,
Sunday, October 7, 2007

It's been a few (OK, a lot of ) days since updating this. I left Auckland about a week and a half ago on Wednesday morning. The drive isn't as long as everybody complains about, but then again I was probably taking those corners faster than I should have (I love New Zealand roads).

The drive took me through some nice country and some very nice little towns. I arrived to find Dave and Heather here already, as well as some other backpackers I had met in Auckland. I let Heather convince me to go horseback riding with her and Dave. Heather has since left, bud Dave is sticking around about as long as I am apparently.

The Tauranga (taw-wrong-ah) area is beautiful. The greater municipal region has about 120,000 people, which apparently doubles around New Year's. Tauranga is like the Miami of New Zealand, minus the alligators, crime, retarded heat and the "jackass" mentality. There are not a lot of people in their 20's here; and most of those seem to be travelers like myself.

Work is going well. They pay me alright, treat me well and have placed a surprising amount of trust in me. They put me up in a motor lodge for the first weekend, then in a luxury "apartment" for a week. The apartment was very nice; it had a "spa", a shower with too many nozzles to count and a small kitchen complete with dishwasher.
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