With only 24 hours in the Bay of Plenty we didn’t have much time to venture off the beaten track so we ended up going to a lot of the typical tourist spots (not that there is anything wrong with this).
We went to Bobby’s Fish Market, which had been recommended by one of our Getting Lost readers. I can see why – this place has real, unapologetically old fashioned fish and chips cooked in beef fat (and that is the ingredient we are missing now a days).
Bobby’s Fresh Fish Market
And it’s set in an awesome location right on the waterfront with heaps of chairs.
Bobby’s Fresh Fish Market
It’s popularity shows with a 40 minute wait but it wasn’t hard to find things to do while we waited. There were the Hairy McClairy sculptures – they were all so familiar to me even if kids had forgotten the characters names (they are forever burned in my memory!) and an awesome playground.
Hairy McClairy Sculpture park in Tauranga
After lunch we headed over to Mount Maunganui with the intention of climbing it and burning off a bit of that beef fat! However when we got a little closer and looked at the height of it we decided that it may be safer to go and explore Leisure Island instead.
Leisure Island has an easy walk up there with lots of paths for the kids to chase each other down and escape from parents and enough cliffs for them to give you grey hairs as they dangle over them. For me what I loved was the imaginings of the pools and slides that once graced it this island in the 1980’s.
After a bit of a walk the girls (aged 7, 8 and 10) decided it was time for a swim so stripped off to their undies and in minutes were in the rather chilly August water. It didn’t seem to bother them one bit and we had to drag them out after 30 minutes of playing in the gentle waves.
As well as great swimming and well maintained billboards there were plenty of shells to find on the beach also.
Really, we just scraped the surface of what you could do in Tauranga – there is so much more to discover for next time we go.