We spent our last few days in New Zealand in the Oceanside town of Tauranga on the Bay of Plenty. We stayed in a fantastic Airbnb on site of a family home. We were thrilled to learn the family had three boys aged, 11 to 6, Aiden, Daniel, Elijah who were eager to play with our kids. They had a huge yard, our kids loved playing soccer jump, jumping on the trampoline and playing manhunt with the boys. We enjoyed exploring the Spit, seeing the sailboats and having dinner on a fun patio. After dinner, the kids visited the local playground, it was amazing. It was dark outside, and the playground had different coloured lights that kept changing colours and patterns. Aiden felt they were training their kids to become ninjas as there was a very challenging obstacle course and wall climb.
Sophie and Aiden were thrilled to have some time to work on their schoolwork, they are a little bit fed up with their parents hiking habit. Each mornings Alastair and I would take off in search of the days walk, we appreciated having a rental car as we explored the rolling hills and countryside, it reminded us of Ireland with lots of sheep, and cattle. We were blessed with beautiful sunny skies and temperatures in the low 20s. We found several fantastic waterfall hikes. McLaren falls and the Māori sacred Omanawa falls.
In the afternoon the kids would join us for a family outing. One afternoon we hiked Mount Maunganui, the local mountain, it gives you a wonderful view of the coastline. Another afternoon the kids convinced us to do clip and climb, they had tons of fun doing something that reminded them of home, while their parents got groceries and walked to the beach.
