Hitchhiking in New Zealand: Mount Maunganui

Hitchhiking in New Zealand: Mount Maunganui

19th of July, 2025.

Miraculously, soon enough someone going all the way to Tauranga stops for me. Blake is a Māori guy, and again, I forget to take a photograph with him.

He’s living with his girlfriend in Tauranga, and he tells me that it’s a town for retired people, and there are lots of retirement homes here.

As I’m arriving soon after lunch, instead of late afternoon as I predicted and told Chucky I would, I ask Blake to drop me off near the beach (which is a short walk from Chucky’s house), so I will have my sandwich there, and spend some time chilling, before heading to Chucky’s house later.

By the beach there’s no restaurants or nearby houses, so after dropping off Hulk there, I walk two minutes back to the main road and ask for some hot water in a very nice, and also fancy, pub. I want to make tea!

I have condensed milk in my breakfast tea, so it’s milk tea. And it’s yummy! Just as my sandwich.

So what am I doing in Tauranga? Well, I have two extra days before I have to hitchhike to the airport. Luckily, as I wondered what to do with those days, Chucky, the nice tourist guide who helped me a lot when I was hitchhiking (well, actually stuck) outside Wānaka, in the South Island, sent me a message reminding me that, if I had some time, they would invite me to visit their place and stay with them. As I checked on the map, it looked like a nice place, so here I am.

Chucky and his wife Sami actually live in Mount Maunganui, which is just by Tauranga. They have a baby girl of five, Kohaku, who’s fluent in Chinese and English. That’s because Sami is Japanese and Chucky has also worked in Japan for many years, so he’s also fluent.

When I’m trying to get to their house, which seems easy enough according to my offline map, by trying to avoid the sun, I take an alternative route, but end up in a road which is closed, due to restoration. My second option is even more catastrophic, as walking through the highway leads me to a nonexistent entrance which is wrongly shown on my map. Therefore, I have to walk a lot more than expected and I’m getting all sweaty already. The sum of all that makes me quite angry with myself, questioning my intelligence and wondering why such a thing had to happen to me. Why? As I stop to rest by some shop and put myself together, a woman working in a liquor store comes and asks if I’m alright. That’s because I was crying. Yeah, stupidly, I know. Anyway, I think it’s very nice of her so I quickly explain to her what happened, just so she doesn’t worry much; and that’s when she offer to take me to my friends house. I kindly refuse.

When I walk for little bit only, Chucky finds me.

When he saw my message he immediately went looking for me, and imagined that I would be by those shops. Smart guy! Or was simply the universe helping me? At certain point, I got myself thinking that the universe was just trying me, wanting to make me more easy going on myself. And I should do that, really.

Their house is super nice and the bedroom which I’m staying is incredible! They use it for AirBnb, so it’s fancy and perfect, with a perfect bathroom and everything I might possibly need. There’s even a fridge (with water and some chocolates for me), tea, coffee and a kettle. I’m in heaven! I feel like a real guest, even though they treat me like part of the family.

Before dinner, Chucky and I go for a hike around Mount Maunganui, to catch the sunset. It’s a very nice walk and we talk about many different things.

Kohaku is a sweetheart and we become friends soon enough. At dinner we talk about my travels and, of course, my experience in Japan. We have Japanese food for dinner which is awesome! And a delicious herbal tea after. As Kohaku goes early to bed, we all say goodnight at 19.00 hours.

I answer some emails and messages, then I listen to some music, read some magazines which are in the room, and then I finally go to sleep.

20th of July, 2025.

As it’s Sunday, we go to the beach after breakfast. It’s surprising to me that so many people are going scuba diving, because even though it’s nice and sunny, it’s also cold and I’m sure the water is freezing.

We take a nice walk around, we climb up a hill, and we have some tea and snacks. Then we have some nice pies for lunch in town before heading back home.

I take a nap. There’s a rugby game at 18.00 hours, and it’s Chucky’s favourite team. We have pizza and soup for dinner, and right after, Chucky and — star watching the game. Around 19.00 again all us girls go to sleep and Chucky finishes watching the game.

Next morning we drop Kohaku off at school and soon after Chucky drops me off in a hitchhiking spot near the highway.

Staying with Chucky, Sami and Kohaku it was a fantastic way of finishing my travels around New Zealand. I feel very grateful the I crossed paths with this amazing family!