Blogs from Coromandel Peninsula, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 8

So I left Auckland at 7.30am and headed on the Magic bus away from Auckland the my next stop in Coromandel Town! We firstly headed up to Mt Eden to get a look at Auckland from above before driving a few hours to Thames where I changed my bus for the connection tour Only 2 other people got off this bus and joined me so a very quiet group of people but we headed from Thames to Hot Water Beach for our first stop. Scenery is just amazing here, so green and with the fabulous weather we are having here just stunning to look at!! Hot water beach - two hours each side of low tide you can dig a hole in the sand and sit in a natural hot pool!! most of the island is ... read more

Friends Reunited - Exploring the Coromandel Peninsula Arriving in Auckland after a long flight via KL was tiring enough for us seasoned travellers...what we weren't expecting was the two hour mission through security and passport control. We were scanned, searched, x-rayed til we nearly couldn't take anymore. They were checking for drugs, seeds, biohazards, including mud on your shoes, and probably the dirt under our finger nails too!!! Luckily, as arranged our good friend Perg was there to meet us,with his mate Libby, what a relief to see friendly faces after all the official nonsense we'd just gone through. We went to Libby's house for a much needed coffee and to collect 'BigHorn'..our home/transport for the next few weeks...Perg had organised everything, tents, stoves, pots and pans the works.Not wasting any time I jumped in behind ... read more

So Tuesday 19th, the Stray bus was late picking me up from Parnell even though I was the first pick up! I later realised this was just how Seagull (our driver) worked! We drove around Auckland for quite some time picking people up from lots of hostels then headed up to Mount Eden - in the bus which was good as it was raining by then! After a quick stop at Stray HQ to have the online booking system explained we left Auckland & hedaed over to the Coromandel Peninsular. The hills there were beautiful to drive over. We stopped off a few times to shop or admire the views & to hug the twin Kauri trees that are meant to bring good luck &health! We stayed at a campsite hostel in Hahei & most of ... read more

Continuing on from our previous blog, after driving back through Auckland we had decided to head east and then back up the coast to a region called the Coromandel Peninsula. Looking at a map of the north island of NZ, this is the part which slightly bends away from the main land area and there is a very scenic ring road (freeway 25) which follows the coastline in a huge loop passing through various town - In a way, similar to it’s UK namesake ‘M25’ but with the added bonus of no traffic, beautiful forest on one side and crashing waves against sandy beaches or rugged cliffs on the other (so in actual fact, nothing like it at all). Our initial plan was to make our way to the starting point of this loop, Thames and ... read more

Saturday morning brought with it blue skies and bright winter sunshine. The weather couldn't have been more different from the yesterday - nor more welcome. We started our day with bike ride through Pauanui town and across to an area of canal-like waterways that looked interesting on the map. We came to a stop at a wooden octagonal showroom which had a sign offering free views across the canals. A lady sitting inside the sales office came out to say hello and instead of giving us an unwanted sales pitch, she kindly produced a bunch of maps and leaflets about the area for us to take away. She suggested we bike along the boardwalk nearby which we hadn't seen on any maps but sounded like a grand idea. The road to the boardwalk took us downhill ... read more