Australia & NZ (Cruise) -- Nov 2013

This is the next day, probably just before the ship docked at the port for the city of Tauranga, New Zealand. The name Tauranga is very similar to the name of the zoo in Sydney. I'm not sure if the two names are related in any way.

The harbor here is protected by a long pennisula, with a small mountain at the end of it. That small mountain, Mount Maunganui, is pictured here. The community (both a beach community and a port) is called Mount Maunganui.

The main part of Tauranga is perhaps two miles away (across a harbor bridge, which seems to almost be a requirement in that part of the world). The two areas (Mt Maunganui and Tauranga) are not too different in size, perhaps 20,000 and 40,000 respectively. I had the impression they are really one municipality, in a legal sense. I saw a truck with something like CIty of Tauranga written on it picking up trash in Mt Maunganui. (IMG_4737.SX40A.JPG)