Our backpacking trip: Diciembre 8 - 10 / December 8

En la tarde llegamos al Monte Maunganui. Nos vamos a quedar en Playa Papamoa. Andy, uno de los contratistas que conoci en Christchurch nos presto una casa en Papamos por un par de noches.

El 9 de Diciembre, Agustin nos dio el regalo de navidad; era un paseo de pesca, al parecer la pesca por estos lados es muy buena. Nos embarcamos a las 3:00pm. Jason el capitan del barco nos mostro lo que sacaron la noche anterior. Empezamos a pescar como a las 4:00pm cuando llegamos al primer punto, despues de unos minutos casi todos habiamos sacado algo, aunque la mayoria no cuplian los requisitos de medida y hubo que devolverlos, pero el dia apenas empezaba y ya habiamos sacado. Jason nos dijo que iba a mover el barco a un mejor punto. Empezamos a pescar en el Segundo punto y al cabo de un tiempo nadie habia sacado nada. Jason movio el barco varias veces y siempre mirando el radar pero nadie sacaba nada. En la tarde nos encontramos un cardumen de Kahawai pero muy pequeños. Nos divertimos sacandolos y aunque pequeños peleaban muy bueno!

Lo mejor del dia fue la aparicion de un tiburon pequeño cerca del barco.

El dia termino a eso de las 9:30pm cuando llegamos a la marina sin nada de pescado, que dia tan perdido!

Diciembre 10 fue el ultimo dia de Agustin en Nueva Zelanda. El habia comprado pasaje en bus desde el Monte Maunganui a Auckland para tomar el avion hacia Los Angeles. Lo llevamos a la estacion de bus y nos despedimos. Fue muy bueno haber compartido este tiempo en Nueva Zelanda con el, lo vamos a extrañar muchísimo!

Tambien fue el dia que le tomamos algunas fotos a Lucy para ponerla para la venta.

En la tarde empezamos a manejar hacia Coromandel. En el camino paramos en la mina a cielo abierto de Waihi, el rio Ohinemuri donde hicimos una pequeña caminada y vititamos las cascadas Owharoa.

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We arrived in Mount Maunganui in the afternoon. We are staying in Papamoa Beach. Andy, a contractor I met through work in Christchuch, was kind enough to lent us his house in Papamoa for a couple of nights.

On December 9, Agustin gave us his Christmas present; it was a fishing trip, apparently fishing around the area is great. We embarked at 3:00pm. Jason the skipper showed us the catch from last night’s fishing trip so we got all excited. We started fishing around 4:00pm when we reached the first spot, after a few minutes everybody had caught a few fish, however most of them did not meet the legal size requirements but the day looked very promising. After a few minutes Jason told us that he was moving the boat to a better spot. We started fishing at the new spot a few minutes later but nobody was catching any fish. Jason tried several other spots but fishing went downhill from there… we did not catch anything after the first ones. It was not until very late that we found a Kahawai school but they were very small. We enjoyed catching a few small ones using our river fishing rods.

The most exciting thing of the day was the appearance of a small shark around the boat.

The day ended up around 9:30pm when we got back to the marina without any fish to show for, what a disappointing day!

December 10 was Agustin’s last day in New Zealand. He had booked a bus from Mount Maunganui to Auckland so he could catch his flight that night. We took him to the bus stop and said goodbye to him. It has been amazing sharing this time with him in New Zealand, we are going to miss him very much!

It was also the day we took the pictures of Lucy so we can put her up for sale.

In the afternoon we started driving to Coromandel. On the way we stopped at Waihi open mine pit, Ohinemuri river and did a nice walk and visited Owharoa falls.