Coromandel

We needed one quick refreshing day in Auckland's B&B and we were back on our way. This time, we were on our way towards the south island and the first stop on the way was the always talked about Coromandel peninsula. We decided to settle in a very small campground with the softest grass in Coromandel Town and then do a one day excursion north of the peninsula. As agreed, we started off for Fletcher Bay, the furthest point in Coromandel, in the morning. The journey should have been a quick one, however, little did we know that we would spend 1 hour each way driving 30km/h on a dirt road to get to the bay. Once we got there, the sun was still shining though, so we did a short 1 hour hike up the nearby mountain. One can actually walk to the next town over the hills, but that would have been too long for us to come back to the car, so decided not to pursue that notion. After the walk, we took a quick dip from the black sand beach in Fletcher Bay, but brrrrr (not the warmest ocean here :)).

The next day, we headed to Cathedral Cove and Hot water beach, the must-do attractions in every guide book in Coromandel. Well, the 40 min hike from carpark to Cathedral Cove is quite nice and once we got to the destination, it was actually quite a spectacle to see this tunnel in the cliff. Make sure though that you go on a sunny day and not on a local holiday or you are facing the same situation as us and will be passing folks every two minutes on the path. Not as secluded as the other places we went to, so I'd say it is a bit overrated. The Hot Water Beach would sort of fall into the same crowded category, but we decided to give it a go. After 2 hours spent in digging for hot water in the low tide (which really wasn't that low), I finally gave up thinking that I got the $5 for spade hire well spent. (Jenni left me there as she was much smarter to realize that this is not a good idea). Well, I found the hot water (it is actually very very hot), but along with 100 other folks and with low tide waves filling up your hole with sand every so often. I reckon with a real low tide, it could be much more fun to dig a hole and lay in the warm water.

The last stop on Coromandel was a small place called Mt. Maunganui where we climbed the local mountain. After 1 hr of uphill tracking, we were able to see a stunning view of the bay and had a great feeling of achievement and also a needed practice climb for our next adventure. We got lucky, it didn't rain too much. The beauty of this mountain is that there are actually many tracks leading up, so it never gets old.