Ok, so the photo isn't quite of Whitianga, but the choice is so limited! Imagine a sandy beach with limestone cliffs which have been eroded into caves and you'll be about there!

Its a beachy place here, which is great when its sunny but its been quite stormy and rainy here for the past couple of days.

Nearly had a brush with the local wildlife on Stingray Cove- was happily swimming away in the warm sunshine (the only day of it) and then had a bit of a sunbathe, oblivious to the fact that the cove lives up to its name and there were several stingrays in there with me! Some girls I met on the bus saw them in there but forgot to mention it.Thanks. Maybe my expert sea gliding swimming technqiue fooled them into thinking I was one of them (the stingrays not the girls). Or soemthing.Whatever it was, I'm just glad!

Spent a day walking round the cliffs, Shakespeare cliff is the biggest and there were lovely views of all around. Think my legs will be like steel if I keep up this amount of steep staggering up tall things!

Also had the most delicious lunch of beautiful fluffy pancakes, egg, bacon and maple syrup...mmmmmm...have to dwell on that for a while while I'm eating my plain pasta and eeking out the food budget!