The worst rain for decades

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As we headed to the Coromandel Peninsula we heard on the radio that one of the roads was closed due to flooding, half hour later it says the road is open so we continued. We got as far as Whangamata only to be turned round by the police. There was one road north and that had been completely washed away and one road east and that was covered in a massive land slide. We stopped a while in Whangamata because they were having a classic car show. The town has 4,000 residents but for this weekends show there will be 70,000 people god knows where they are all going to go. After a quick coffee and a look at some classic cars we headed back the way we came. Luckily for us the only other road onto the Peninsula was the gorge road and that had just re-opened. The road follows the river along the gorge. The river normally runs 20-30 feet below the road but the day before the river was running over 20 feet above the road, completely flooding over 20 km of the highway. Although the road was open we still had to dodge trees, boulders and land slides and sections were closed off until they could find a digger to come and move the earth off the road. Despite the delays it made everything more interesting. It wasn’t until the end of the day that we finally reached Coromandel Town.

We stayed in what looked like a lovely place cut into the side of the mountain. It turned out that the dorm room was sandwiched between the ladies toilet, kitchen and TV room. So when you didn’t hear someone flush the toilet or use the shower you could listen to people talking and watching TV. Lovely. To make it even better we woke up to yet more bloody rain.
We went to the local tourist information and discovered that all the walks in the area had been closed as most of them had been washed away.

Unable to drive the scenic top of the Peninsula we had to cut across to Whitianga.
Finally the rain had stopped and we were able to get outside. We went to hot water beach. The idea was that you could dig a hole on the beach and it would fill with hot water percolating up from the ground. Just one problem normally you have to cross a little trickling stream that cuts the breach in two but today after all the rain this trickle was a torrent. Carol Anne and Oriel went first and then like a scene from a comedy programme Carol Anne faltered, twisted and went down with the water. Clothes, bag, camera, passport the lot all heading towards the sea. After I controlled the laughter I was able to help her out of the water and take her soggy stuff back to the car. At this point I decided it wasn’t worth it. It turns out this was the right decision as everyone coming back said it was crap.

After the soaking incident we headed back the hostel. The next day the sun was shining again so on our way down the Peninsula we stopped off at Cathedral Cove. Named because the sea has carved a massive cathedral like cavern into the rock. Today we drove all the way down past Hamilton towards Waitomo Caves.

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