It is a three hour drive from Coromandel to Mount Maunganui and we arrived to town around noon.  Mount Maunganui stands 761-feet tall and there is both a summit walk to the top as well as a base walk.  Since we were not wearing our hiking clothes, we chose to do the base walk in the afternoon and later returned to do the summit walk at sunset.  It was a beautiful hike and the water looked so blue.