Coromandel & East Coast


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Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Coromandel
October 29th 2010
Published: October 29th 2010
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We set off with every expectation of getting to our next destination in about 4 hours - funny! Just as we got north of Auckland the traffic starting picking up and then, stop we were in a traffic jam and we crawled all the way through Auckland (with lovely views of the sky tower though and the harbour, you can see why they call it the city of sails). We assumed that the whole population of NZ were in Auckland today!!!! It took us over an hour and a half just to get through the city but gradually the traffic eased as we travelled up the western side of the Coromandel Peninsular and the roads got smaller and smaller until there was just a ‘narrow’ road with ocean on one side and steep cliffs on the other and this went on for ever…..and then we had to cross over the mountain range to the east coast and down to Hot Water Beach which we reached in just over 6 hours with an hours stop to stock up our supply of wine and beer and some food! This is a beautiful part of NZ, lovely views on every corner but every sharp bend we went around we seemed to hit a huge logging lorry going the other way ….but no tourist though! After coming down from the mountain we arrived at Whitianga which is a lovely sweeping beach and is where the legendary Polynesian explorer and seafarer Kupe is said to have landed around AD 800, resulting in the area being called Te Whitianga a Kupe (Crossing Place of Kupe). We booked into a small campsite at Hot Water Beach and as we had experienced in our last campsites there were not many people around, most sites we have stayed at only had a couple of motorhomes and tents (their busy season still a few weeks away so an ideal time to travel). We were offered a couple of free spades as we had booked two nights!!! The owners said to head straight down to the beach as the tide was right to dig a hole and have a hot water spa bath right on the sea front. Apparently two hours each side of low tide you can dig a small hole in the sand which quickly fills with very hot thermal water and you can relax in your very own spa bath. It was indeed delightful and we stayed for ages just soaking in the hot waters (although sometimes it got so hot you could see the sand bubbling beneath you and you had to try and dig further out where it was a little cooler) but it was so relaxing for our travel weary bones. What was so strange was that the beach was huge but everyone was congregated in this one small area where the sand was hot beneath your feet. It was truly a magical experience not to be forgotten and we thought it was very similar to the feeling you get floating in the Dead Sea in Jordan - nature has its own magic. Next day we awoke early and decided to spend the day walking around the area. First we travelled to Hahei (not sure how to pronounce this) and we walked along the coastal path to Gemstone Bay where there is a snorkelling trail in the ocean although we could not take advantage of it as the water at this time of year is still too cold. We then stopped at Stingray Bay a beautiful small cove with a tidal beach and we were the only ones around so had the beach to ourselves. We then continued to Cathedral Cove which is aptly named as it has a large nature limestone arch which adjoins two bays with golden sand and remarkable rock formation probably not to be matched elsewhere. Later we travelled on to Cooks Beach this is the beach named by Captain Cook when he sailed into the area on the Endeavour in 1769 and decided to name the attractive beach after himself - well it was lovely but we could not even buy a ‘flat white coffee’. Later back at our campsite we decided to go again to Hot Water Beach to soak our aching limbs after a long day of walking - oh this retirement life is heaven……………. This evening whilst eating our BBQ steaks we were enjoying our lovely forest vista and saying how lucky we were to have such a lovely peaceful view when all of a sudden a ‘flying kiwi coach’ arrived. A tour group of cyclist touring around NZ piled out of the coach and set up camp opposite our lovely view. Paul went off to ‘wash the dishes’ and returned complaining about the lack of hot water due to excessive use of the showers (there were a lot of lady cyclists who decided they would rather shower than set up camp) - and also about a load of Americans discussing how they were going to cook their evening meal, quote; ‘are we going to ‘fry’ these mussels or ‘bake’ them’. We had arranged the next day to contact our granddaughter, Maisie to wish her a happy 7th birthday via Skype but the campsite was in a ‘deadzone’ for our mobile broadband. So we awoke early and moved to the next beach Hahei which had better broadband connections and parked the motorhome in a carpark overlooking a vast beach. We were delighted to be able to speak to Sharon, Geoff & Maisie and Kerry & Cliff who were having a birthday tea and we all sang happy birthday to Maisie with the UK ‘singers’ finishing after us due to the delay in connections which was quite surreal. We then decided to return to our campsite to have breakfast of bacon and eggs (yes Sharon and Kerry) it was bacon and eggs and not Yoghurt and Fruit! We then proceeded to travel down the eastern coast to Mount Maunganui where we managed a walk to the summit. Tomorrow we travel inland to Rotorua…………


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29th October 2010

?Full breakfast?
... is that the full breakfast without tomatoes, beans etc Sheila? We are not at all jealous of the experiences we read about (I'm such a liar). The hot water beach sounds blissful, shame you can't do that anywhere in England!

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