Last night was our first experience of a Top Ten holiday park and I have to say we were rather impressed. They have great shower, kitchen and BBQ facilities and everything was lovely and clean. For a change from our usual yoghurt and muesli breakfast, we went to Oliver's Cafe in Orewa this morning. I had the best porridge ever (although I'm amazed they were serving in the middle of their summer!) They also had free wifi and freshly baked muffins - win!

Once Phil had his coffee to go, we ht the road down through Auckland again and round to Mount Maunganui. If we thought Orewa Beach was touristy, we hadn't seen anything yet! The town centre doesn't feel like being in NZ, it could be any generic, over-commercialised resort. It was crawling with young people and the beach was crammed with surfers. Apparently they teach surfing at high school here!

Needless to say, we didn't spend much time in the centre but we did climb Mount Mauao at the end of the beach for spectacular views of the coastline, Taurange Port and the nearby islands. It was incredibly windy but we were so impressed with how many people - both male and female - we saw running up Mauao, something you would definitely not see back in the UK!

As we left the centre and headed towards Papamoa beach, we were amazed to see 8km of huge, modern houses; luxury apartments and 5 star holiday resorts... so this is where the money is! We had our fingers crossed that it would be quieter down our end of town - we'd booked another Top 10 campsite and Papamoa.

We have an awesome pitch - right on the beachfront so we can watch the waves from the window of the campervan. Only problem being that we really don't like the campsite - there are kids everywhere, the kitchens are crammed (again, with kids) and the showers and toilets are miles away. Perhaps Top 10 sites aren't such a good idea after all. Although, we have already booked two more...

We had a rather uninspiring run out along the road and back along the beach (it was way too windy to go out along the beach) and have now settled down to plan our next few adventures...