The Coromandel Peninsula is absolutely stunning. We drove up from Rotorua, stopping en route for walks and headed towards the east coast which is famous for its beautifully rugged coastline. There is a great walk which we did to Cathedral Cove which is a beach only accessible by foot. The path is stunning and snakes down the cliff through the woods passing other even smaller beaches where you can stop off and snorkel (there is lots of marine life due to the national park protection status). Cathedral Cove itself is famous for the huge arches in the rocks caused by years of sea erosion and certainly looks very impressive. We also visited Hot Water Beach where you can dig your own pools in the sand which are geothermally heated. Unfortunately the tides were not working in our favour so we settled for standing on the edge of the rocks and getting soaked by unpredictable waves coming over – great fun!
Coromandel town itself is very quaint and full of little delis, cute cafes and cosy bars. We spent a night there enjoying the local beer and wandering around the marina drooling at the yachts. Before leaving the next day, we made sure to visit the Smoke House which specializes in smoking fish. Lunch was a real treat of smoked tuna & a local fish as well as some chunky homemade seafood chowder, which was totally delicious and a nice change from pasta. The drive on route 309 was great fun – it's a bumpy dirt track through the mountains with lots of interesting and bizarre things to do on the way. The 309 Road is a 22.0 km, narrow, winding, gravel road between Whitianga and the town of Coromandel. In fact, it's the shortest route between Mercury Bay's Whitianga and the Hauraki Gulf's Coromandel township. Our first stop was the Waterworks museum, which is hard to describe. It's set in someone's large back garden and is designed to show you the different things you can do with water. It has some really cool structures & interactive activities which focus mainly on different methods of hydropower. In addition, there are many boards which have various quotes and funny stories, normally the sort of things you would read on an email forward, which was quite random. There was also a great adventure playground, which I think was meant for kids, but Mark and I spent a while on the death slide, although the amount the rope sagged under our weight made me think it was perhaps not meant for childish adults. I also gave Mark a giggle when I had a go on the human hamster wheel, forgetting how to make it stop and running faster and faster until it took me down with it (horrid thing). It took him a while to stop laughing as apparently I had an expression he had 'never seen before.' Hmmmm. Luckily the next section involved water pistols…
Driving further along the road, we got to a peak which we thought we'd try to climb called Castle Rock, an old volcano core. Getting to the start involved a precarious but beautiful drive up a tiny track with hairpin bends and steep sides. Much to our frustration there was a big sign saying that the path was closed, so we had our lunch with a view to die for and carried on.
The road also took us past some really tall Kauri trees which are famous for having Maori legends attached to them. We got our walk in and pottered around the forest marveling over the width of their trunks and how some had formed, particularly the impressive 'Siamese trunks.' With the light fading, it was time to drive towards Auckland for some city fun. JG
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