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Published: September 5th 2008
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After our rafting exploits in Rotorua we headed north to the Coromandel peninsula. Our destination for the first night was Hahei beach, where we were on a campsite right next to the beach, lovely in the pouring rain! Up early the next day went on a walk to Cathedral Cove, a lovely little beach with massive cliffs and a cathedral shaped hole in a rock. The walk was really nice, and the beach was stunning. Our visit was cut short though as the rain clouds moved in and once again it looked like we were going to get a soaking! After completing the walk back to the van, we drove a couple of minutes to the famous Hot Water beach, where the beach is situated on thermal activity and you can dig a hole in the beach to create your own hot spring as the waters under the sands are really hot. Or so they say. We got to the beach and we disappointed to see that the it's actually only a tiny area that has thermal waters underneath it, it was covered in people digging, and only cold water could be found! One group of people had managed to get
thermal water and it looked quite good, but it's not quite the thermal springs resort they lead you to believe. We only stayed about 10 minutes before we left a little disappointed.
Leaving the beach behind, we drove around the north of the peninsula to a little place called coromandel Town, which was a lovely little town with lots of bars and restaurants, we stayed in a really central place for once so went out to the local pub for a few friday night beers. We booked ourselves onto a fishing trip the next day, where you go out on a mussel barge and fish for snapper. Unfortuantely, we woke the next morning to a massive storm. The driveway to our campsite had turned into a river and the winds were gale force, there was no power either. The storm had cleared by lunch time and there were blue skies and sunshine, we headed out to meet our barge for the trip at 2pm, only to get a phone call saying all the other passengers had cancelled due to the bad weather so the trip wouldn't be running!
With nothing else we wanted to do on the coromandel
peninsula, we drove round and up to Northland, and made our way to a town called Warkworth where we camped the night at sheepworld....Next morning we drove out to the coast to see Goat Island Marine Reserve, apparently one of New Zealands best natural wonders, you are supposed to be able to see all kinds of fish from the rocky walkway in the bay. We walked out and round the headland but sadly couldn't see any fish at all! Then it started to rain so we made a quick exit. We drove up the coast to Pahia, the base town for the bay of islands, where undeterred from all our previous bad luck we booked to go on a bay cruise the following morning...
That night a storm set in and there was torrential rain, but we woke in the morning to glorious sunshine, and very excitingly a trip that wasn't going to be cancelled! We headed out for 4hours on a boat looking at all the islands in the area, and sailed out to hole in the Rock at Cape Brett, a famous cliff rock formation. The cruise was really interesting and the guide told us lots of
stories of murder and family arguments on the small islands in the area, it was really good. Our boat trip also had to deliver the post to some of the more remote islands, which was quite funny watching the locals have to row out to collect their post, normally with a dog with them too.
That afternoon we drove up to a place called Ahipara, on the northwest coast a good base for trips up to cape reinga at the very northern tip of New Zealand. Ahipara itself wasn't that nice a place, and after a short walk down to look at the beach we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in our van on the campsite....it was safer that way. the following morning we were picked up by our guide Doug to go on our trip up to Cape reinga. There were only four other people on the trip so it was really good. On the way north we stopped at the Gumdiggers forest which we thought sounded a bit boring. However, the man who showed us round was possibly the funniest man i've met in New Zealand and made talk of swamp Kauri trees quite
Cape Reinga
Northernmost point.... funny and interesting. Next stop was a pretty beach on the east coast of the peninsula, known for its white silica sands...that were more grey when we saw as it was raining heavily...again. it was still a very nice beach though.
We made our way further north through driving rain until we reached cape reinga. it was a short walk from the car park down to the tip of the peninsula where the Tasman sea from the west, and the south pacific ocean from the east meet...resulting in huge crashing waves!...pretty impressive to see especially as it was pouring with rain and very windy it felt quite dramatic. dissapointingly though the famous signpost that points out capitals of the world and how far they are away was broken! we had lunch on the beach neraby before heading to Ninety mile beach. Ninetly mile beach runs the entire western coast of the peninsula and can be driven on by four wheel drives. To get onto the beach we had to go through quick sand stream....which was a little worrying, although Doug said it would be fine, before explaining to each of us what to do if we got stuck and
how to get help.
After reaching the beach we stopped by some huge 150 feet high sand dunes which looked great, this was where we got to try sand boarding!...basically sledging down the dunes...its awesome fun. the hardest part is climbing to the top of the dunes which are very steep and obviously you slip and stumble through the deep sand. Once you get to the top it looks a big drop down, but its so funny, most of us fell off half way down and ended up caked in sand....sal did a particular good effort by managing to slide sideways through a few small bushes.
we continued on southwards back to Ahipara along ninety mile beach with a few stops to lookat the big surf and try to spot wild horses...all of which must have been sheltering from the rain somewhere else.
After our trip to cape reinga we set off southwards heading back toward Auckland. The next day before we reached Auckland we headed out to Phia beach on the west coast, its a black sand beach and also has a large rock called Lion rock that we wanted to climb. However there were more
Lion Rock
Raaaaaaah gales and heavy rain as we set off, and as we reached Phia we were slightly worried to see that the public car park was actually under the sea! We were able to see Lion Rock but there was no way we could get to it as it was surrounded by sea.
We headed off to Auckland for our last 3 days in New Zealand.
In Auckland we spent the first evening checking out some of the local bars which was fun. The next day we went down to the harbour and booked onto a boat trip. the trip was great and we got to see lots of the marinas full of yachts, some that were worth millions. The trip also took us out to view the harbour bridge and to some of the volcanic islands in the bay.
That evening we went to sky city where there are bars restaurants and a casino, but we didn't gamble this time....saving it for Vegas.
The follwoing morning we set off to the airport...excited by the prospect of some sunshine and hot weather in Fiji!
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