Jordan's pacific travel blog: Tauranga

Sunday, May 7

Tauranga

From April 3rd to the 9th, I was part of a ministry team to an east coast city, Tauranga. (Pronounced "Tower-unga".) Tauranga has a very recognizable landmark, and that is Mount Maunganui. The city is clustered around a large harbor, almost all situated around Mount Maunganui, which is connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of land. (The Wharf, I presume.) You can see it in the photos below, and for ships or boats to enter the harbor, they have to squeeze between the mount and an island. The island, which name I don't recall, basically fills the opening of the harbour. This island basically continues the smooth coastline, so if you look on a map, you'll see how interesting Tauranga is.

So here is "the mount" from the docks/harbour.

Here it is from the beach, now we're looking at it from the south side. (South/west if you consider the angle of the coast.)

Of course I had to tramp it to the top...

There's the wharf, and inland. You can see the south/west coast that continues unbroken. (But ends at the mount.)

Here you can see part of the island north/east of the mount, as well as inland Tauranga!

Coming back down I saw some sheep debarking on a cruise ship.

Moving on, we did alot of work that week in Tauranga, including a fair bit of work with the youth there. One day we did a skit at a couple of schools, with a group known as "Cool Bananas". They were definitely very cool. New Zealand has a "Bible in Schools", which is a privilege by law. Churches can then go into schools and have a class on "religious instruction".