Ahhhh… The Coromandel. Taranaki, it took almost a full month but your status as the coolest stop has finally been usurped.
We left Whakatane (Fukka-what?!), then Mt Maunganui and then made our way out of the Bay of Plenty, but not before making a memorable stop at Kiwi360 – the home of all things kiwifruit-related, where you can climb the inside of a big honking kiwi, James and the Giant… Kiwi (??) style. Then, on the 30th, all roads led to Whitianga on the Coromandel Peninsula and the home of Graham and Diane Eccles, our final home visit on the trip.
Once there, I found coffee almost as good as Big Wave (sadly lacking the cool chairs and surfboard tables, though) and some heavenly beaches. And the seafood – oh, the scallops…!
We spent three awesome days exploring what the eastern side of the peninsula had to offer. First up on day 1: laundry (clean bedding!). Then on to the exploring.
The all-but-deserted-and-incredibly-peaceful Waiau Falls was a hidden gem
tucked away down the rocky, winding, corrugated Road 309. Then came a bit of time to wander the harbor and gaze with envy at all of the people out collecting mussels and pipis, before
heading home to meet Graham and Diane, who were houseguests of Rich’s in 2011 when their daughter and her boyfriend lived in our flat. What came next was the start of what would be a three-night, thirteen-bottle wine marathon. On our first night, we went from wine and nibbles on the courtyard deck and then in to the kitchen for our meal. Dinner that night was a real treat: scallops, hand picked by their son Ryan prior to our arrival, crumbed and lightly fried to perfection. Un. Be. Lievable. I can’t actually remember what else we had that night; I was so distracted by the mound of gigantic scallops on my plate that I felt like I was in heaven – and completely dumbfounded to learn that some people actually manage to get tired of eating scallops. Can’t imagine that ever happening to me!
Jan 31st started with 9 holes of golf for the boys and a bit of work for me, then Rich and I borrowed a shovel and set off on the next adventure: the much-photographed Cathedral Cove and the tourist-laden Hot Water Beach.
We had overcast skies, which turned out to be a blessing. The walk to the cove isn’t too arduous but it’s steep in places as would’ve been torture under a full sun. We had a great wander around this beautiful strip of coastline before the tide beckoned: it was time to make the trek back to the car and head for Hot Water Beach while the tide was out.
This particular beach was a whole new experience. Imagine a stretch of beach, maybe 40×80′, then stick hot springs beneath it, and watch people go to town digging their own hot pools.
Not fully understanding how it all worked, Rich and I dug a test hole in a couple of different spots, expecting to instantly get hot water. Dig. Feel. Shiver. Dig. Feel. Shiver. We repeated the process about ten times (what is it they say about insanity…?) before deciding a new approach was needed. Instead, we started trying to poach existing (empty) holes. Turns out they were empty for a reason. Cold. Freezing. Cold. Hmmm… Tepid. SIZZLING! Nursing our burnt toes, we caught a group as they were getting out of their pool and hopped in. Success, just as we were beginning to wonder if HW Beach was actually just an inside joke with locals: send all the tourists to a particular beach, shovels in hand, and tell them to dig holes, thereby leaving the other beaches tourist-free and giving the locals the option of going for a peaceful swim or heading to HW Beach to laugh at the large collection of shovel-wielding fools.
We basked in the glory of our natural spa and dug a bit to expand our territory, eventually taking pity on two other groups, one with no hot water and another with collapsing walls, causing them to lose all their hot water to us (mwah haha…). From our now VERY large hot pool, we watched the goings-on of the beach: the tide coming in; the surf washing out the pools at the bottom edge of the beach – much to the consternation of the occupants; the confused new arrivals as they progressed through the rite of passage that is digging fruitlessly.
While all of this was happening, I had occasionally been shifting positions and I had become increasingly – and uncomfortably – aware that the contents of the beach seemed to have deposited themselves in my bathing suit bottoms. While this realization began to weigh heavily on my mind (and certainly in my bottoms), I noticed that all of the women around me seemed perfectly content shuffling and shifting around in their pools. That is, until we got to the showers to rinse off, when one backpacker exclaimed, “There’s a playground in my pants!” While the other potential meaning of this sentence got lost on the Dutch girl, the English guys nearby struggled to maintain their composure…
After moving Hot Water Beach into the shower at Graham and Diane’s, we hopped in the car for a hilly, twisty ride to Luke’s Kitchen for dinner. Wood fired gourmet pizza has never tasted so good. Who would’ve thought prawns, pepperoni and pesto would be a good combination?? Obviously, a huge number of people agree because, despite the funky little beachside restaurant being tucked away in Kuaotunu (aka the back of beyond), we feasted on pizzas number 8000-8005. And that’s just for the month of January! It’s BYO (so we did, of course) and has the kind of backcountry sunset view of the estuary that dreams are made of. Awesome end to Day 2.
Day 3 was another beach day (tough, eh?)! We weren’t supposed to be there; we were supposed to be heading for Whangarei (Funga-ray – or Wang-gahrry, as someone mispronounced it), in the Bay of Islands, but Diane suggested we stay one more night and we gratefully accepted. We wandered from the scallop shell-littered Otama Beach – where live scallops blow out of the sea and onto the sand on exceptionally windy days, as though begging to be harvested – and then moved on to the deserted, nearly-white sand Opito Bay, complete with wedding ceremony set up and beachfront wooden swing. From there, we hightailed it to the start of the walk to New Chum’s Beach – reputedly one of the world’s best. Best, I’m not so sure, but certainly isolated and a lot of fun to get to. If we ever do that walk again, we’ll know that ‘rocky’ is the key descriptor in the trail details and that leaving shoes behind isn’t wise.
Feet suitably toughened and feeling like we’d been through the jungles of Borneo a couple of weeks ahead of schedule, we hurried back to the house in time for the next nine holes of golf and some excellent fizz for Rich and I respectively. Tough. Life.
It was ‘guest’s night’ in the kitchen and cards (and wine) around the table that night, before an early start in the morning for a punishing uphill walk. Okay, there was a downhill bit at the end but I swear it was 90% uphill. A great coffee to end the walk and next thing we know, we back in Delores, sadly waving Whitianga goodbye, and finding our way to Whangarei.
Grateful for: a good shovel, Kiwi hospitality, ingenious food combinations
Grateful for: a good shovel, Kiwi hospitality, ingenious food combinations
