To Quote Sir Edmund Hillary

“Well George, we've knocked the bastard off.”  Somewhat appropriate today as Georgia gave me a ride to Tauranga, (https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/100763642).  First task - some vigorous exercise so up Mount Maunganui I headed.  It's a mere 2100 metre gravel path to the summit at 250 metres and there's a choice of tracks.  I opted for the 4WD track, figuring that it would be fairly navigable and have no stairs (not fond of stairs). It was a nasty cruel track having virtually no level stretches to catch you breath on, just an unrelenting 7 degree slope (calculated that myself - it felt like more).  It didn't help that many of the local nut cases like to run up it.  It wasn't particularly hot today - 25 degrees max but the humidity was 100% and I was soaked in sweat when I go to the top.
There was a school party of 120 kids arriving in small groups and some in the first group had neglected to bring water bottles with them so I offered my 1.5 litre bottle around with a request that they didn't let their lips touch it.  I then poured a healthy slug over my head and could feel the steam rise.  The top 50 metres or so of the Mount were covered in fog when I set out and I sat at the top for half an hour in the hope that it might clear, which it didn't.  It hadn't cleared by the time I got to the bottom, either so I wasn't tempted to go back up.
George, meanwhile, was working for a living getting an order for pumps and pipes and generators from a local business.  She impressed the living daylights out of me handling phone calls on the way there with her handsfree phone and being able to reel off details of past orders, what was in stock and what was needed to shift 5 litres per second from A to B.
I took a different route down, this one involving (I was informed by the school party) roughly 560 stairs (yes, really).  Now, I have a healthy dislike of stairs as my vertical depth perception isn't all that great.  However, all the stairs are the same height which meant that, after falling down the first one, I was able to handle the rest with no problem.
 By the time I reached the bottom I was several kilos lighter than I had been when I'd started having sweated like a pig for the past 2 hours.  So what better than a dunk in the sea off the beautiful main beach.  The surf looked tempting and there was a decent length of beach with no surfers at it.  There was also a group of half a dozen young men swimming there so I wouldn't be swimming alone and in I went.  1 step - up to my ankles.  2 steps - up to my knees. 3 steps - bloop bloop.  OK, I can handle that. flipped over on my back and enjoyed the waves breaking over me.  Then I looked at the shore and saw that I was about 30 metres further down the beach than I had started and was heading suth at a decent walking pace.  Bearing that in mind, I kept close to shore, tried to see if I could swim against the current (a clue - no) and, after bobbing about for a few minutes, decided that flaking out on the grass by the beach was the best plan.  As my bum hit the grass, George called to say she was done and was I ready to head back to Waihi.  Perfect timing.  All that remained was to grab some lunch at the local bakery, mail some papers for Amy and pick up some salad at a fruit shed, but not before we'd checked out their ancient but still working tractors.
Once again, dinner was on the deck - barbecued bangers and salad.  Today's price check - a decent sized turkey costs $NZ100 while crayfish is currently running $NZ117 a kilo.  I'll let you do the conversions but it goes a long way to explain why I have had neither turkey nor crayfish since I got here.