Blogs from Coromandel, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 6

As Fern and I were taking a shortcut to the mall Friday afternoon were walked through a swampy gully with a boardwalk. The path was packed with beautiful trees and a birds and a little trickling stream and was simple magical looking! Fern was laughing at me for being so enthralled by everything I saw and promised me that if I thought the “smelly swamp” was pretty, I would go absolutely bonkers when we got to the beach. She was right but more about that later. I should really document all this in chronological order. So after our walk around the shopping center Fern and I continued our tour around the neighborhood by stopping by the most incredible playground I’ve ever seen! New Zealand is a world leader in extreme adventure sports and is undoubtedly home ... read more

Hello again everyone! I’m in Coromandel (the town) now, we spent the night before last in Whitinaga (pronounced ‘Fity-anga’) a small town in the eastern side of the Coromandel Peninsula. We went to the Hot Water Beach and dug a hole to soak in but found that the water was hot enough to boil a lobster so we had to find another place to dig a hole where it was slightly cooler. Anika, Kerstine, and Lena all thought that my newly bleached hair (I’ll get some pictures up after we leave Coromandel because I only have 60MB transfer here) had no practical uses, but who sees me but Tim and Luisa who took their weekend off to relax at the beach and do the Cathedral Cove hike. The only reason they were able to recognize me ... read more

Coromandel is a peninsular on the north eastern part of the main part of the north island if you know what I mean - it’s quite hard to explain where it is without a map but anyway, it’s north of Rotorua. We headed in that direction as we’d read that there was a beach there called hot beach where we could dig a hole in the sand and the geothermal activity below would allow the sea water to be heated up so that we could bathe in our own freshly dug hot spring pool. Imagine having a bit of a laugh digging out a hole in the sand similar to when you were a child at the beach, basking in the gorgeous sunshine on a beautiful beach with amazing views and then lying down, relaxing in ... read more

As I had to get up anyway for a long day of travel between Napier and Mount Maunganui (MM from now on) which is on the coast next to the city of Tauranga, I set the alarm a bit earlier and watched the dawn, so I was among the first people in the World to see the sky lighten, turn golden and the sun come out. It was a good thing that I did, as an hour and a half later black rain clouds had covered the sky. The route took us back into the centre of the North Island and we made several stops to pick up and drop off people at some of the towns I had already visited on my way South, including Taupo and Rotorua. At the start of the trip we ... read more

Au sud-est d'Auckland, la côte forme une péninsule appelée Coromandel, réputée pour sa beauté naturelle préservée. L'endroit est certes touristique, mais la fin de la haute saison l'a rendu presque aussi solitaire que l'East Cape ; c'est pas moi qui vais m'en plaindre. Pour le reste, cette entrée marque la fin de ma "Quête", débutée sur la colline d’Edoras, voici un mois et demi. Je ne saurai dire si l'on a gardé le meilleur pour la fin ; mais le plus reconnaissable, ça c'est très probable. Un dimanche à Hobbitebourg Matamata est un petit bourg agricole comme tant d'autres dans le pays, à quelque 60 km au nord-ouest de Rotorua. En y regardant de plus près, toutefois, il y a des choses un peu plus singulières qu'ailleurs : ce panneau planté au milieu du village, indiquant ... read more

Having to work every weekend is turning into a trend so hubby and I decided that on Thursday we would go somewhere if the weather was nice...yes BEACH DAY!!! We had just recently been to the Cormonadel where hubby read up about Opoutere Beach. and it all sounded good so we decided to head there. It is a 2 hour drive from Auckland but that was not to defeat us. We had checked the weather forecast the night before so we were a bit dumbfounded as to why it was chucking it down with rain in the Coromandel while we were driving there. It was a bit disconcerting as well because we seemed to have left the sunshine back in Auckland. Anyway upon arrival at least the rain had stopped and the sun was attempting to ... read more