Things we learned:

The warning signes at the sea are there for a reason.

The afternoon that day showed the dark side of the wonderful beaches here. There are warning signs everywhere that warn people of the dangerous drifts that occur at many NZ beaches. While we had a late lunch at the beachside restaurant a 50-year-old man watched two little kids dragged away by the sea. They screamed for help and he and some others jumped into the water to safe them. He pushed them to the other helping people and they got the kids out alright. When they turned around the man was dragged under water.

First aiders and doctors tried to get him back to life for almost one hour, but the gentlemen died on the beach.

We only saw the ambulances and helicopter arrive and didn’t know what was going on at the time. We read the details on the news.

It made us very sad, but also very aware of the dangers of such a peaceful looking location. The sea looked perfectly calm that day.

Stuff we saw:

Some of the tunnels are open to public and you can walk in there for.a few hundred meters.

Its a pretty strange feeling, since we were all by our own.

Nice forests everywhere

In this canyon there used to be an old mine with hundreds of little tunnels dug into the mountain.

Our campsite at the beach…

We had a little walk along the beach

Christy getting the best angle for her picture

playing in the waves is always fun

getting her feet wet (and finally her trousers as well…)

Stuff we did:

We wanted to continue south…

Not looking at anything special on the way we did what we always said so far would be an amazing thing to do in NZ just drive around the countryside.

There is really no need to stop anywhere. The whole country is so beautiful, that just driving around would already make this place a fantastic travel destination.

All the other stuff is just another extra on top of it…

The area we crossed is part of the Bay Of Plenty. And there is plenty…. Plenty of fruits, farms, seaside, beaches, rivers, hills, cattle, grass and a lot of blue sky.

We visited an old mine  and walked into long tunnels that were dug into the walls of a canyon.

Other than that it was a fantastic drive without any sights to see, just nice landscape to enjoy and a nice campsite at the beach.