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We got back into the car to check out the other side of the peninsula. Our destination - Coromandel Town. Two roads lead to Coromandel, one is a looping paved road that follows the contour of the peninsula and ends up looking like an upside-down "U" and then there is the 309 Road. The 309 Road is a 21-kilometer affair crossing the spine of the peninsula offering roadside attractions as well as a couple of hiking opportunities. A local at the cafe down the street had told me that the 309 Road was "a bit of a bear" but could shave off about 30 minutes of the drive time compared to the paved option. Gertrude agreed, and we have been opting for the scenic routes anyway. It was unanimous- bring on the 309!
The 309 got its name from the horse & buggy days. The average time to traverse the road was three hours and nine minutes. Gertrude was estimating about 50 minutes for our Toyota minivan to make the trek. The road lived up to its reputation as a "bear" with narrow, muddy passages around hairpin corners. Some of the sides of the roads had surrendered to erosion and
gravity and left enough space on the road for the passage of one vehicle at a time. Fortunately, there wasn't much traffic but the cars that occasionally approached us seemed to be locals driving much faster than I could manage. This added excitement to the adventure.
Around the halfway point on the road, we found a kauri grove trailhead. It was a short track with a fork that led to two turnarounds. The first track led us to the Siamese Kauri, a pair of trees that took up root close to one another. As the girth of their trunks expanded, they joined as one. They were remarkably similar in size and stature. Just short of the trees was an informational sign about the area. One of the interesting notes was that two species of frogs were in the area. Although the sign indicated that they were active in the evenings, this led us to scan the ground a bit more than we had in the past. As a result, we spotted two interesting mushrooms. One was bright blue and the other was a greenish-grey fungus. Both stood about 3-4 inches high, so we likely would have missed them had
we not been looking for the frogs. We followed the other track as well which brought us to a platform that presented an overlook of the forest through the large trunks of a kauri grove.
We drove all of about 2 minutes before finding another track to the Waiau Falls. This was a short jaunt to the base of a 30-foot falls. This hike, as with the other, was through lush forest. Unlike the others, this hike didn't include any of the protective wooden boardwalks built up to protect the sensitive roots of the kauri trees.
We drove past a couple of the roadside attractions that we had read about. This included a place called "Waterworks" which seemed to be a walkthrough attraction that had various water-powered displays and devices. Shortly after Waterworks, we saw "Stewart and his pigs." A few people had stopped to chat with the gent who lives out here with about 100 "pet pigs" as well as a bunch of roosters and a peacock or two.
Ivy saw someone petting a pig and exclaimed, "I want to pet a pig!"
Theo immediately replied, "I want bacon!"
We promised a bacon-free stop
Circling a Kauri
We needed Suzy to complete the circle, but someone had to take the photo! on the way back, but we decided that we wanted to get to Coromandel to assess our options for the day prior to making a swine stop.
Coromandel was a bigger town than most we have seen. We dropped in a couple of stores and poked around a bit before deciding to head further up the peninsula for picnic options. Ivy got the first souvenirs on our trip - a cute little fuzzy kiwi and a New Zealand hat pin. We were hoping to grab a water taxi to one of the coastal islands. Upon further review of these options, we found that there were only a couple of water taxis around. These primarily took folks out to the islands to fish as they were fairly rocky with steep drop offs ideal for fishing. Here our guidebooks mislead us quite a bit. It was a nice drive anyway, and we ended up driving back through Coromandel and continued on until we found a nice beach for our picnic lunch.
Longs Bay is where we set up camp. This bay was a nice stretch of beach with views of a couple of islands. The bay was home for a
Blue Mushroom again
We didn't even notice the cute stick-person that someone had made next to this mushroom! Holiday Park. Holiday Parks are scattered all over New Zealand and offer camping & hookups for RV and camper vans. Some have canvas family tents set up for rent as well. Most of these have communal kitchens, bathrooms and laundry facilities. They are popular as a way to see the country while minimizing lodging expense. In the winter months, they seem to only attract RVs and camper vans both of which are fairly popular. We actually considered renting an RV in the early stages of planning our trip, but we were able to find enough reasonable lodging. After driving all around most of the northern half of the North Island, I was glad I wasn't trying to negotiate the roads in anything bigger than the minivan. Also, having filled up the tank three times at $100 a throw, some of the money saved on lodging would have likely been burned in fuel.
When we pulled into Longs Bay, there was a commercial shoot going on for tea called Choysa. This seemed oddly out of place and featured a gentleman in a suit coat and nice shirt. When he got up from his seating position, he revealed that he was
Waiau Falls
The gang posing by the falls. wearing shorts and big rubber boots. Fortunately, Theo didn't make any cameos. We enjoyed our picnic and let Theo play on the makeshift swings on a couple of the trees before we headed back to Road 309.
We stopped in at a grocery store to pick up a cheap loaf of bread as an offering to the pigs and also bagged some of our lunch leftovers for them. When we arrived at Stewart's place, we only saw a couple of wandering swine. However, once we parked they just seemed to come from everywhere. Suddenly we were surrounded by the grunts of hungry pigs. Ivy dropped some of the remnants from our lunch to the ground and a feeding frenzy broke out. This lead two of the pigs to jump into the van to go after the bread! Pandemonium pursued until the bread was absorbed then things seemed to mellow. Stewart was unfazed. He showed us a trick by one of the pigs named "Bacon". This pig would actually stand and walk on its hind legs.
Stewart was a nice guy, seemingly ordinary. But he lives on 900-acres out in the middle of no where in a rusted camper
surrounded by 100 pet pigs, so the ordinary facade must be masking something! We chatted with him for quite a while and he was very interested in our Colorado wildlife. His eyes lit up when we told him of bears in our backyard, fox cubs next door and mountain lions in the area. Everything elicited the response "Brilliant." He even thought that the squirrels all over our yard was quite exciting. The lack of wild animals in New Zealand has been quite apparent throughout the trip, as we haven't seen anything besides birds. We bid Stewart and his pigs farewell after the kids got to hold one of the two-month old piglets.
We made it back in time to head down to the hot water beach to dig pools. We made it down in time to claim a decent spot and had a nice time relaxing in a hot pool. Geddy & Theo took breaks to get thrashed around by some waves. We stayed until after the sunset and headed back for dinner, worn out by a long day of fun and adventure.
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