The Coromandel

Poukeko in Rotorua

On the road again....... this time for our last long car journey of this trip, driving from Napier to Hahei Beach at the top of the Coromandel peninsula. When we were booking the trip back in Scotland we had no idea of the number of twisty turny, winding roads there were in New Zealand.  How people do it in camper vans we have no idea and we are pretty glad we went for the car option. You are not given much clue as to the level of formula one skills you will need as a driver here, either by guide books or the tourist information centres.  Osmosis seems to be an essential  key skill  –for all sorts of things........

A brief pit stop in Rotorua was enough for us. This is the hot springs tourist mecca of New Zealand and the smell of sulphur does take a bit of getting used to.  I think it is the most touristy place we have passed through in our journey to date and everything is set up for coach tours and large numbers. It was onwards and upwards to the furthest reaches of the Coromandel......(well not quite, but that’s how some of those roads make you feel.)



Hahei Beach



We stayed in a studio apartment very close to the beach in the small resort of Hahei for the first three of our six night stay in this area. It was owned by Jill, a straight talking Kiwi who spent most of her adult life in the US, returning to New Zealand  to retire about 10 years ago. She painted local beach scenes and sold them from her garage studio. She’s not what you would call a typical artist- telling us she “  churned out”  4,000 paintings over the past 10 years  catering mainly to the tourist market.... At least she was honest and forthright. She had a lot of strong opinions on a wide range of subjects, particularly her home country. But she provided one of the most comfortable places we have stayed in to date and the coastal area she lived in was pretty outstanding, reminding us more of a tropical island than anything else.

 After a lazy day around Hahei we spent the next day driving to Coromandel Town and Whitianga, the two biggest spots on the peninsula. If you were a surfer or owned a small boat, you would be in your element here. And we saw the most breath taking stretches of coastline that were virtually deserted on warm sunny days. It’s just not busy anywhere.  Although to be fair it is the end of the summer and the children are back at school. Also we read that the global recession has had a fairly significant effect on tourist numbers here- thought to be down 20% on figures  5 years ago.



Lovely gallery at Hot Water Beach



Digging for the elusive hot water......



 As we may have said before on the blog, we have found it quite expensive , with food and petrol prices in particular coming as a bit of a shock. And house prices are not dissimilar to the UK .

The second part of our stay in the Coromandel has been inland in an area where they have mined for gold for almost two hundred years and in fact still mine today. It has quite a different feel to it. Our cottage is along the Karangahake gorge and yesterday we went on a fascinating and pretty spectacular gorge walk that took us through two mining tunnels, over a series of small swing bridges and up the gorge valley following the Waitawheta  River . The remains of the old mine shafts and tunnels  as well  as dilapidated plant and machinery could be seen all the way up the gorge. Plus quite a few waterfalls. Today it’s a very popular area with locals who know all the best river water holes to swim in.

Tomorrow we head for Auckland and our last stop here in New Zealand.  We’ve covered quite a few miles over the course of the last 5 weeks or so and can’t believe where the time has gone........

After a post about the sights and highlights of  Auckland,  the plan is to do a short summary of our impressions of New Zealand, hopefully before we leave.........so watch this space!