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Published: September 27th 2008
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We've just got back to Tauranga after spending a few nights in Coromandel town to celebrate our 10th Wedding Anniversary!!!
We left Tauranga late Thursday morning and worked our way slowly towards Coromandel. We stopped at Karangahake Gorge for lunch and had the most amazing date and oat cake. The road from Thames to Coromandel is about 50km long but it is very windy and right next to the sea with no barrier so we went pretty slowly!! The scenery was absolutely stunning to so we kept stopping to let Rob take photos. At one point a Police man took a photo of us.... Weird! When we eventually arrived at our accommodation, at about 4pm, we immediately fell in love with the place. We had booked Driving Creek Villas in advance and knew what to expect but the real thing was so much better than the photos! We had a Japanese hot tub in the garden and our own private section of the river with a beautiful garden. The villa was fantastic too - a heated bathroom floor and a massive bed with Eygptian cotton sheets! We also had mountain bikes provided so the first thing we did was a
bike ride followed by our first of many dips in the hot tub! We went into Coromandel for the evening and had a drink at a pub/betting shop/arcade!! Coromandel only has 1600 residents so businesses need to be flexible!! We had a really nice meal at Umu, not Emu, and met more friendly Kiwis!
We started Friday morning with a dip in the hot tub before heading to the Driving Creek Railway - New Zealand's only narrow guage railway. This took us 3km up into the hills for spectacular views over Coromandel. The whole railway was hand built by a guy called Barry Brickell who originally built it to collect clay for his pottery work. His staff also made the elecric trains that take tourists to the 'eye-full tower' everyday. Some of the bridges carrying the train looked a bit suspect - they were all made out of recycled material!! It was great fun though!!! Our train spotting friends will be proud!! In the afternoon we headed to the Cathedral Cove which is where the opening scence of Prince Caspian was filmed! This is a really beautiful part of NZ but you could tell that lots of people had
been there before - they had carved their names into the rocks!!! Karen had a look for Aslan but to no avail!! We saw a lovely sunset on our way back to our villa and finished our wedding anniversary with a lovely meal at the Pepper Tree and a hot tub with pink champagne under the stars!! Bliss!! We have never seen so many stars and they blew our minds!!
Today we visited New Chums Beach which is a remote beach that can only be accessed by hiking over the rocky coastline (well that's what our guide book said!!) so we stumbled over lots and lots and lots of rocks and it was all getting a bit hairy!! Near the end of the rocks we noticed a women walking along a path about 10 metres from where we stumbling - 'you do realise there's a path up here'!! DOH!! She was our saviour and we felt like proper wallys!! Well when we eventually got to New Chums beach we realised that it had been worth the effort - it was completely deserted and so picturesque!! Green sea, white sand, forests that looked like Ents (from Lord of the Rings)
and large colourful rock formations with bits of lava in them. We collected lots of beautiful shells and just enjoyed having the beach all to ourselves. We saw some really cool birds and trees on the way there and back and Karen was particulalry taken with the Oyster Catchers.
We drove back to Tauranga this afternoon and it started raining pretty much as soon as we got in the car! We were greeted with a 10th Wedding Anniversary cake when we got back and we've had a really nice evening catching up with the Bennetts.
TTFN and thanks for all your comments :o)
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Vicki Mercer
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HELLOOOOOOOOOO!
Hey there you guys! You look like your having an amazing time. Make th emost of it and thank the Bennets for the dish washer for us! Its a totally amazing invention that is great! I hope your I want to here lots more about your travels so keep blogging! Don't miss a moment! Love Vicki