Mussel-bound

On Thursday morning (Emma's birthday) we drove up to the Coromandel Peninsula for Anzac Day weekend on the South Pacific coast. We stopped a couple of times, most notabily to watch a huge flock of Black Swans on the "Seabird coast" near the town of Miranda. We also stopped in the old gold mining town of Thames for pies...

After following the amazing west coast road along the Peninsula and then crossing the mountainous spine on some very windy roads, we arrived at "Black Jack Lodge" in Kuaotunu late afternoon and then made a quick run across the mountains to Whitianga to stock up on supplies for the four days. For Emma's birthday meal we bbq'd some fresh snapper and some lamb and drank a very nice bottle of aussie red.

The next day we went out to a remote beach to collect huge mussels off the rocks. Standing in a gully in the rocks by the side of the ocean we encountered an octopus who was very keen to grab feet and toes and also very quick to take any mussels that we dropped! That evening we cooked and shared all the mussels we had collected and Emma even ate some of the seaweed, which apparently was delicious. The downside is that whilst cooking we were nearly bitten to death by mosquitos...the little blighters are everywhere, especially at sunset!

On Saturday, we drove back across the mountains to Coromandel Town, stopped for LaLa coffee (a local roast) at Colville before driving on many kilometers of unsealed roads to reach the cape at the end of the peninsula. The plan was to walk the Coromandel coast walking from Fletcher Bay to Stony bay, but the weather turned and we found ourselves eating our sandwiches in the car in the midst of a terrific downpour. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving back on very wet roads, through river fords that were a lot fuller than the way out, and stopping for very quick walks during breaks in the weather. We stopped for LaLa coffee (again) at "Driving Creek Cafe" , well I had coffee whilst Emma tried a special "juice" consisting of celery, apple juice, beetroot, spinach other delicious ingredients, it was bright red/orange and she downed a pint of it! We then had a look around Coromandel Town where we bought and ate some of the smoked fish that they are famous for in the region, and yummy it was too.

On Sunday, our last day on the Coromandel, we enjoyed the rain and took a drive to Whitianga to do what has to be done on a rainy bank holiday weekend...the cinema! Afterwards we cooked a roast dinner, accompanied by bbq'd sausages and spent a pleasant evening drinking home brew with the owner of the backpackers and a fellow guests, and getting bitten by more mosquitos.

(Apologies for some of the rubbish photos in the next couple of blogs - our camera ran out of juice and we had to resort to camera phones...however, I think we've made up for it with the video of Harvey the Praying Mantis, as mentioned in our last blog!).

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Part of trip: Auckland to Christchurch 2008

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