Our day in Mount Maunganui was mostly spent climbing the mountain. I say mountain but really, it looks like a big hill, however after climbing up there it's definitely more mountainous than hilly. We had a nice leisurely stroll around the base of the mountain before going up to the summit. Now, we keep doing all these walks but they're not getting any easier; we're not especially unfit but it's proving difficult to improve on it. We were continuously overtaken by crazy people jogging past us and even by an old man, just to make us feel even worse about ourselves. We did make it though, only to be rewarded with a pretty rubbish view of the city. After all that excercise, we rewarded ourselves with a burger each, maybe that's why we don't seem to get fitter...
That night we attended a pub quiz, it was advertised to start at 8 but when we got there, 10 minutes early, they were already on the second round! We got teamed up with a group of girls and were allowed to participate. As usual, we didn't do too well, but considering a lot of it was about kiwi people and places, I don't think we did that badly. We had a nice surprise when Rugby School got mentioned in a question and were able to get that one right though. Back at the van, we waited until midnight and popped party poppers to celebrate Charlie's birthday.
In the morning we filled the van with balloons and hung up a banner while listening to Christmas songs- it was the nearest we could get to a birthday song. After breakfast by the beach, we headed over to Raglan on the west coast.