Plenty in the Bay, including a Hobbit

Bay of Plenty
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After leaving Rotorua, we headed up for a day in the Bay of Plenty. we stopped at a beach near Mt. Maunganui and went from sleeping in thermal a couple of nights before to being in shorts and t-shirt on the beach! Spent the afteroon walking along the lovely beaches and finding out why it was called the bay of Plenty. a fisherman said because that is what the founders found it was 'plentiful'!

The next day we headed off to Mata Mata, so I could fulfill my dream of being a Hobbit. I spent the morning touring 'Hobbiton' and actually believed I was a Hobbit for 3 hours, I even went in a hobbit hole. Once I got that out of my system we hit the road to bypass Auckland, straight up to Bay of Islands.