
photo credit:
nim
I remember the first time I ever came to Tauranga. I was a kid on a family vacation with my parents and we had arrived into the city late. We were looking for a place to stay in Tauranga that was close to the beach, luckily for us there were many options from which to choose from.
We had to drive over the new harbour bridge (this is 1989) which was built to connect the beach town of Mount Maunganui to Tauranga. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s Tauranga was still a pretty quiet township with friendly locals and corner stores.
We found a place to stay right at the foot of the mountain, which was re-claimed by the Maori people and re-named Mauao recently. We had such a perfect holiday walking from our cabin to the surf each day.
Shortly after that idyllic holiday we relocated to Tauranga for good!