Carry on up the Coromandel
9th-13th January 2007

Our first trip away from the home comforts of Tauranga was very successful, if you don't count the weather!

Since we're total novices to the travelling game we thought we'd do just a nice little trip around the Coromandel Peninsula to gently introduce ourselves to the world of hostelling and (eek!) living on a budget. So.. we consulted maps, joined the YHA, booked rooms, etc. basically made sure we'd prepared ourselves fully. So imagine our disgust when we sat down to watch the weather report just 5 minutes after we'd completed our bookings... they had forecast rain for the whole week we were up there. NOOOOoooo! It seems that when we moved here we brought the British summer with us!

As it happened, it didn't rain all week, but some of the beautiful scenery we'd been promised whilst driving along the coastal areas was hidden under a dense layer of cloud and fog. Still, we managed to see the funny side though and arrived in Whitianga in good spirits, so keeping the theme going we went shopping for some more good spirits. After dinner we got chatting to the other inmates, all of whom were friendly and welcoming. 3 bottles of wine later we staggered to our room and fell into a drunken coma, waking the next day howling like dogs due to sore heads, but were dragged out of bed by the scorching sun and half of the hostel who we'd managed to offer a lift to Cathedral Cove to in our inebriated state.

Cathedral Cove was beautiful, and under the rules of good vs bad karma, we had to do a gruelling 45 min walk to get to this little section of paradise. Luckily it was a really good walk, and well worth the effort even though the waves were particularly viscious that day and had a nasty ability to remove swimwear without warning. Later that day, we found ourselves at Hot Water Beach, where the tourist guides will tell you to "hire a spade, dig a hole and wait for hot spring water to bubble up from underground, then sit in your own self-dug spa bath". Simple eh? ... hmmn. . not as such... The reality goes a little more like:
- take a group of 10 people and hire the 3 remaining spades from the shop,
- admire the vastness of the beach and how lucky you are to have got there so early.
- spot the seething mass of spade-wielding tourists on the horizon
- curse yourself for being so naive
- find a space amongst the throng and start digging your hole
- discover you're digging in the wrong place
- dig another hole,
- burn your feet because you're in the spot that all of those in the know are avoiding
- dig another hole nearby and sit in 2 inches of lukewarm water
- watch in disappointment as your sand-wall crumbles and your water disappears into the massive hole the germans next to you have dug.
- sneak into their pool
- look smug til a man in budgie-smugglers digging a hole next to you throws sand all over you.
Anyway, you get the point... it was chaotic, and nothing like we pictured in our minds eye but very good fun anyway.

Waving a sad farewell to our first hostel we set off along the 309 road through to Coromandel Town. We'd been informed that the 309 is an experience... 14km of gravel road (or, "metal" as they inexplicably call it here), but with some sights along the way (waterfalls, scenic lookouts, and thelike) the most amazing of which was Castle Rock. I think the idea is that you're supposed to park in the car park and scramble to the peak for a peek, but we parked in the car park and ate last nights pizza looking out at the view. That was adventurous enough for us intrepid explorers!

So.. after many stops along 309 road we finally reached the rather lovely Coromandel Town. Really not a lot going on, but they had some lovely pubs, and we had a great time at the Lion's Den Hostel and definitely could have done with a few more days there. I insisted we visited the Coromandel Smoking Company to purchase some of their legendary smoked mussels but wimped out at the last minute - those things are just too ugly to eat! Instead I opted for a piece of smoked Orange Roughy - which when I asked the lady what it was like, she helpfully pointed out the picture of the fish, as it would have looked were it not gutted, skinned and presented in fillet form.... helpful, but not really what I meant.

We also went on the Driving Creek Railway, which is something else that Coromandel is famed for. It's basically a railway that was built by a potter for getting his clay (and wood for the kiln) down from the mountains but he went a bit potty (see what I did there?) with it and kept adding more and more extensions, just for fun, it seems.. so now it's mainly used for tourists. A one hour trip on a miniature train took us up into the hills with some amazing views from the "Eyefull Tower" at the top.

After Coromandel we headed down towards Thames. The less said about this the better really... lets just say we should have heeded the advice not to bother with it!

After Thames we headed back to Tauranga via the Karangahake Gorge to do a walk, but as is our luck it was raining too heavily and not having our cagouls with us we didn't want to embarrass ourselves amongst the professional walkers with our sandals and animal-shaped brollies. So we opted instead to have a cup of tea and piece of cake in the Talisman Cafe next to the car park. If you ever have the good fortune to be passing by the area, take my advice and stop there for a piece of Lemon Meringue pie!

Next stop Auckland...