A grey start fuddled with our brains and we headed the wrong way (South) for 20 minutes before realising and turning back to retrace our steps.
We drove through the dense kiwi fruit plantations, including a kiwi fruit themed fun park... Before finally arriving at Mount Manganui. We drove in along the seafront, after some slightly errant map reading by yours truly, and parked up in the centre of NZ's equivalent of Sandbanks. A long row of flash batches looked over the row of norfolk pines to the white sand and crystal clear water where 'the right sort' of people milled about.
Perched on the end of the spit was Mount Manganui, an extinct volcano which we decided to climb, so earning us a swim later in the day. In the fierce heat of the late morning sun we strode up the path and for every 2 walkers there was at least one runner sweating their way up. We tried to ignore them and were rewarded at the summit by a stunning 360 degree view of the strip, port and Island studded sea.
We battled the wave of Easter holiday makers back down and picked up a smoothie from the wave shaped van on the front, before making camp on the sun kissed beach. The swim was brief but the sun quickly warmed us back up and we made the most of the Easter weather before grabbing gelato and heading out of town.
Booking a campsite proved tricky and most were either full or requesting a 3 night booking... In the end we booked our most expensive site yet (an extortionate $52 (£26)) and made our way north to see what made it the sort of place that had spaces when everywhere else was full...
It was a crèche, on the end of a long isolated spit, and marauding armies of children were running, cycling, screaming, bouncing, crying, cricketing and annoying their way across the entire site. However, the beach was stunning and we ran for a couple of k's along it, pretty shells dotted all over the high tide line. We turned around after passing another remote controlled long line fishauler who was having a very fruitful reeling in session and was very pleased to show us the bucketful of red snapper he had accumulated.
The sky was heavy in places but the sun burst through and we took our chairs up onto the dunes to enjoy the dramatic sundowner with cold drinks, crisps and humus.
Supper waited until it was dark in the hope that the toys would come out of the pram and the wheels would come off the kids games. They didn't. Despite this we constructed chicken, bacon and mushroom risotto with peas whilst watching a thrilling super league game (Chiefs vs Blues). We ate it out of the wok, under blankets back at the car watching the stars and eventually turned in, remembering to wind the clocks back an hour. A pretty good day!