White Island

We were in Tauranga for a mini holiday over the weekend and, I have to say, I now hate Auckland. Anyway, we decided to travel down to Whakatane because we had already done Mt Maunganui and Rotorua. When we got to Whakatane, we were pretty dissapointed because quite frankly there is nothing there and the boat trip was cancelled, so we enquired about a trip to White Island and found out a good tour would drain $150 per person from our bank account. Having spent the majority of our money in Tauranga, we decided against it. I was just wondering if anybody who has been to White Island would be able to tell me if it worth the money, and the time.

Thanks in advance.

:( Oh dear, i'm going living in Whakatane, I hope it is just bad tourist wise and not living there, sorry :-[ If you want to look at White Island go to the Whakatane Coast Gaurd sight, it has pictures on there. I found this quite interesting sight but I don't get out much. Did you know they have dolphin and whale watching in Whakatane?
Missvee

Maybe it was just bad because it was a sunday. But still it just seemed pretty empty and dull.

A lot of places in Whakatane as well as other small towns and cities dont open for long on a Sunday. Seems to be the same in most of NZ.

A lot of people have mixed views about WHK but it has everything you need if you are living there. Tourist wise I dont think there's all that much to do there to be honest apart from White Island and the dolphin and whale tours. From memory you can also go swimming with the dolphins up there.

There are nice surrounding areas in WHK as well. I love one of their names its something like Opehopepo or something :)

Hi peeps! Thought I'd throw in my tuppence worth about Whakatane! We really like Whakatane, in fact we camped down there in a nice campsite at Thornton Beach at New Year with our 3 girlies and had great fun! Our budget didn't stretch to going over to White Island as it is pretty expensive but we did sit on the beautiful beach and watch smoke spiralling out the top of White Island in the distance, awesome!

Whakatane is pretty small and it depends what you're looking for in terms of a trip, if you love the beach then there's not much to not love about the place, about 15mins drive Ohope is beautiful too and is great for surfing. Also the hot springs at Awakeri are worth a look. As Lil Amy said, most places in NZ (well can only speak for Bay of Plenty) don't stay open long on a Sunday as there's a real emphasis on quality time with families.