Yesterday I took my youngest two kids for a walk around The Mount (as Mt Maunganui is referred to by locals) as we are staying about a 2 minute walk from it at the moment.

As we left I told them that when I was younger and I had done this walk with my parents we had once seen an orca (killer whale) swimming offshore. Brittany and Noah at once wanted to know how many orcas I thought we'd see on our walk and I had to tell them that despite the hundreds of times I had done the walk I had only every seen an orca in the harbour once so it was highly unlikely we'd see any today.

They didn't believe me and began eagerly discussing how many orcas they expected to see. It turned out I should have listened to them as right between Matakana Island, the long dark island with the long white beach towards the top of the picture and the Mount itself, were two orcas swimming in the harbour!

I didn't have a camera with me so here is a pic that the Herald took when one of their reporters spotted orca's at the Mount.

Today we are climbing The Mount so hopefully they will still be hanging around and we can take some of our own pics.