Feb 4, 2023 Whakatane NZ Ohope Beach

After another delicious breakfast of Egg McCraig's, we said good-bye to our lovely Hilton suite. Loading up the KIA and squeezing in our new "chilly bin" was a bit of a challenge. As we drove through Rotorua, we stopped @ a bookstore where we purchased a used Travel Book. Then drove a couple of hours to Whakatane. In NZ, they pronounce "Wh" as an Fu so Whakatane is pronounced Fukatane. The ladies @ The Hilton desk, taught us how to pronounce it and they got a chuckle out of our surprise when they first corrected our pronunciation of it! 

It was too early to check into Tuscany Villas when we arrived in Whakatane. We walked to the Visitors Bureau and learned about the nearby White Island Volcano Eruption in April 2019. There was a sightseeing tour on the island when the volcano erupted unexpectedly. Twenty one persons lost their lives out of 47 in the tour. Very tragic. I don't care to visit any volcano islands, thank you very much. We enjoyed lunch sitting outside @ an Irish Pub. The Pub reminded Craig of a joke & the punchline was: "keeping your worms warm by putting them in your mouth". A great topic while eating! 

Tuscany Villas were located right in town and were small, single story rooms and we all were side by side. The rooms were clean but they were no Hilton, imagine no heated bathroom floors! We have been spoiled now. After settling in, we drove up to the highest point expecting a 360 view of the ocean and the Bay of Plenty but the view was limited yet nice. We then drove down the other side and were rewarded with beautiful views of the Bay of Plenty, Ohope Beach and surf. The beach has been voted the best beach in NZ.  We watched surfers from a high vantage point then drove down to walk the impressive beach. The beach had fine soft dark sand and was clean, wide and long. Luckily it was low tide and we found a few shells but there were big rollers which was why we saw surfers. While walking we found a Mexican Restaurant right on the beach and decided to have dinner there. 

We took our time because we needed to wait till dusk so we could walk a trail across the street from the beach to see Glow-Worms. It was a tree covered canopy trail & we had been told we could see the worms here instead of paying to go into a cave to see them. We also were hoping to see and hear Kiwis. When it became totally dark, small fluorescent green dots began to show up on the banks along the trail and then poof-there were hundreds of small lights, like miniature lighted villages in the woods along the trail. It was magical. We also heard bird calls which we thought were Kiwi but locals told us it probably wasn't Kiwis. They are very elusive and most locals have never seen one.