Bay of Plenty

The lovely drive around the beautiful East Coast ended up in the Bay of Plenty. Captain Cook christened the Bay when he sailed into the harbour back in 1769, it stretches from Waihi Beach in the east, which we visited during our Coromandel trip, all the way west to Opotiki. We spent a great night at the long sandy Opotiki Beach watching the sunset and then travelled up the Bay to lovely Ohope Beach.

The eastern side of the Bay consists of beautiful long stretches of white sandy beaches with a gorgeous back drop of cliffs covered with the famous New Zealand Christmas Tree...the pohutakawa tree, which is now blooming red in the run up to Christmas. We stayed near Whakatane, which is a lovely little harbour town, and then made our way north to Tauranga.

We stopped off on the way at Maketu- a town made famous by Makatu Pies, baked fresh and daily here! And of course we had to try the local produce, or in Chris´s case- about 3 of the local produce! We also stopped off at Te Puke- the Kiwifruit Capital of the World! The kiwifruit earns New Zealand over a billion dollars every year and most of them are grown in the Bay of Plenty, so its quite a big deal around here! We visited Kiwi 360 which sits amongst orchards and orchards of pears, oranges, avocados and of course.. kiwifruits! We had a 30 minute kiwi cart ride around the kiwi orchards and we were told EVERYTHING you could possibly know and want to know about kiwifruits!

We then tasted the golden and the green kiwi, some kiwi liqueurs and kiwi jam. We were told how its a perfect place to grow the kiwis here due to the good balance in sunshine and rainfall.Unfortunately for the rest of our time in the Bay of Plenty we experienced quite a lot of that all important rainfall needed for the kiwifruits!