Day 5 - Brian and Amy Hit the Open Road

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Today we headed to the Coromandel Peninsula, southeast of Auckland. We said goodbye to the Bavaria B&B and rented our little car. Driving on the left side of the road was really pretty easy and we made it out of the city and on to the highway. We took a few stops to enjoy the scenery, do some shopping, and hunt some geocaches. We even stopped at someone’s house to buy some avocadoes. Our route crossed some small mountains and there were some sections just like West Virginia switchbacks. The scenery along the Coromandel Coast was beautiful, lots of looks over blue harbors as we wound through the mountains right along the water. (Note from Amy: Brian is doing a fantastic job driving and all I’m doing is feeling sick from all of the “swirlies”). We arrived at our cottage on Hot Water Beach late afternoon and the weather was perfect. The name of the beach comes from the fact that there are hot springs just above the low tide line and if you dig a hole in the sand at low tide, it will fill with hot water. A do-it-yourself hot tub! We were a little late for low tide. We gave it a go anyway without much success, but Amy made some friends who let her try out their pool. We’ll try again tomorrow. After a short walk on the beach to look at shells, we started making plans for the next day. The cottage is fantastic, very cute with a wonderful view of the beach. We had a nice steak on the grill while looking out at the ocean and met the owner’s dog, Abby. When she figured out she wasn’t getting any steak, she went on her merry way. Smart dog. We also have a little garden and we sat and fed the birds. One took the bread right from Brian’s hand because he’s Dr. Doolittle. That’s all for now. Stay tuned.

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