Coromandel

The sun was out and this could mean only one thing - we had some driving to do! We waved goodbye to the glow worms and drove the 4 hours to the Coromandel peninsula. And when we arrived - it was still sunny! 

Our first destination was Waihi Beach, a small town on the southeastern side. The town had a working goldmine up until about 3 years ago but now relies on tourism and farming to support the residents that remain. We drove along the causeway to Bowentown parked up and found the biggest hill we could to climb up.  The views of Shelly Beach and Anzac Bay  from the top were pretty nice! 

Pretty Nice

From the other side of the hill we could see all the way along the beach back to Waihi (where the beach hit a headland and stops)

The other side

We headed back down the hill (downhill in flip flops hurts btw!) and onto the beach, just as about a hundred school kids rocked up to take it over! So we drove to the campsite and about 20 meters from the van had our own stretch of beautiful quiet beach.

Nice!

The next morning the view from our bedroom window was pretty good too!

So good I had to get up and outside! 

As the sun came up a large weather front was just clearing.

And as it cleared the sun was shining - that's 3 days in a row now!

From Waihi, we traveled northwards deeper into the Coromandel and found Oputere Reserve, 'world famous' for its rare bird, the Dotterel. We didn't see one.

Spot the Dotterel

But we did find an amazing beach with no one else in sight just 30 minutes walk through the bush!

Seems like a few other people had heard how nice Oputere Beach was too as on our way back to the car park we passed loads of people. Heading further north we found a good looking hill, Mount Paku. At the top we could see for miles over the town of Pauani.

Pauanui

We reached Hahei by early afternoon and walked the 2 hour return trip up and down numerous cliffs to Cathedral Cove. It was a hot day and the walk was hard work, but it was really worth it!

Cathedral Cove

Not too shabby

Not a cloud in the sky

And as if the hike wasn't long enough already, we found a couple of extra tracks down to totally secluded bays with white sands and crystal clear (but cold) water.

Hot Water Beach was our stop for the night, and as its name suggests it is a beach with hot water.  For an hour either side of low time, geothermal water is accessible on a small section of beach - all you need is a spade and a little bit of hard work to make your own hot tub.

I could have done with a bigger spade! 

Guess the owners!

And relax

The water was so hot it burned your bottom in places!

Our last day in Coromandel began with yet more sunshine as we drove to Whitianga through the Coromandel Forest Park.  Whitianga is a fair size town (for New Zealand) with loads of cafes and fishing shops, and also serves NZs second best ice cream; Kapiti (Patagonia in Queenstown wins hands down!)

Whitianga

Beautiful

And the sun kept shining as drove to Matarangi on to Coromandel Town. We had a quick stop for a late lunch and a potter around the town centre before heading off along the Firth of Thames, on what has to be one of the slowest 50km of driving we have done! The road literally follows the edge of the firth so it was twistier than a game of Twister. Nice though!

 

Matarangi

The view across the Firth of Thames towards Auckland.

Its a shell

Wai O Tapu, Waikite Valley & Waitomo

Wai O Tapu, or Sacred Waters, is about 40 minutes from Rotorua. It was pouring with rain as we left town, and was falling harder when we arrived, but we only had the one day to see it so we put our hoods up and braved it.

First stop was Lady Knox Geyser. What a joke - a ranger pours soap powder into a small cone and 2 minutes later it 'erupts'! Iceland - your town of Geysir is safe as Geyser capital of the world.

The Lady Knox Fountain

Two minutes later we left as hoardes of Americans ooooh'd and ahhhhh'd at the 'natural wonder' and we headed to the mud pools.  Now these were real. And smelt of rotten eggs.

Looks like mud. Smells like eggs

Sounds great. Smells bad.

Hot

Back in the main thermal area the first attraction is the Devils Home.

Needs an air freshener

 The heavy rain landing on the hot ground did give the area a rather mysterious feel

The rain eased and just in time for us to view the artists palette. Nice colours, bad smells.

The Devils Ink Pots are boiling pools of oil and graphite. Nice.

The Opal pool was a little less threatening - but still boiling hot.

The silica terraces here are not as colourful as Orakei Korako, but are still very impressive

The highlight of Wai O Tapu is without doubt the Champagne Pool. We know this as we saw photos from when it was not raining and wasn't almost completed shrouded in a continuous cloud of steam!  We did get a couple of shots of the edges though.

Finally, the Devils Cave, a bright green lake smelt so bad we headed back to the van, even though the rain stopped for 5 minutes!

We were excited before arriving in Rotorua about visiting the Polynesian Springs Spa - voted one of the top 10 in the world.  We had a look around the previous day and soon realised that we couldn't visit. The water may have been the most miraculous waters in the world but relaxing in a sulpherous haze didn't float our boats.

By chance, we came across a small locally run spa, Waikite Valley Thermal Hot Pools, but had no sulphur smell at all, fed by the Te Manaroa Spring - the largest single source of 100% pure boiling water in New Zealand. We would like to show you photos as it was an amazing place, but we had a private spa and no photos were taken (you'll be pleased to hear!) but here's a couple of the boiling stream instead!

The next day we left Rotorua and its smell behind, and travelled a couple of hours to Waitomo Caves. We booked ourselves onto a black water rafting trip in the afternoon and headed off for a bite to eat and a walk to stretch our legs.

At Arunaki Cave, we walked 'the best short walk in New Zealand', an hour's amble in and out of caves.

At 3pm, we headed off to The Legendary Black Water Rafting Company and joined up with a load of crazy Dutch, American and English people on a coach tour and eventually got into the thickest wetsuits and jackets you have ever seen!

Our training involved us getting a rubber ring and launching ourselves 12ft backwards into a freezing cold river. Then it was time to descend into the caves. It was dark and walking through a fairly fast flowing river at least waist deep with an uneven, rocky bed and very limited headroom whilst carrying a rubber ring was tricky!

It was time to put the training to good use. Standing at the top of a waterfall we launched ourselves backwards landing ass-first on the rubber ring. Shame we weren't able to capture this on film - it was so funny!

We then floated along the river, deeper into the cave.  Our guides then linked us together and told us to turn our head torches off and look up. Above us were thousands of glow worms! Amazing.

Then we found out that in order to produce the glow they were infact defecating! Glow worms aren't actually worms, but larvae and from each of these you can see lots of silk like threads hanging down, which are made by the larvae to catch food attracted to the light. The larvae stays in this stage for 8-10 months, becomes a pupae and then turns into a fly.  The fly has no digestive system so doesn’t eat and only lives for 2 days. Their purpose is only to reproduce; the male dies after mating and once the female lays her eggs she dies too! What a life!

Rotorua

We left a grey start to the day in Taupo and headed off to Rotorua in search of some rays. It failed.

Rotorua is either the Maori for 'smells like rotten eggs' or 'place of extreme crap weather'. Either way we arrived and headed straight out of town again to the Blue and Green Lakes.

Either the weather was hiding the colours or these lakes have been misnamed!

Green - apparently

Blue Lake. Or is it Green Lake? It's a lake!

Maori tree carving 

The sun poked through so we headed for Rainbow Springs - a kiwi reserve and theme park.  They take wild kiwi eggs in from around 100km radius of Rotorua and keep the kiwis until they hit about 6 months old. This is because the parents disappear as soon as the chick starts to hatch, leaving the chick exposed to predators. By 6 months old they are fairly big, quick and savvy (ish) and they are released back to the area they were harvested from.

Do what it says

We were taken on a special backstage tour of the park where we saw the eggs, the hatchery and some of the recently hatched chicks.  We also saw the Intensive Care area where injured kiwis are brought to receive medical attention. No photos were allowed in these areas but here is a kiwi from the reserve.

Beaky

The park has a few other animals too. Here's a few.

Green Gecko

It was feeding time for the gecko - I missed the 'impact' shot but apparently flies are lip-smacking good!

Yum!

An interesting duck (as ducks go)

We left the kiwis behind and headed into Rotorua. It really does smell, but it has a nice museum building (no idea what's in it as it was closed!)

If only you could smell this

The next day it rain was back and the cloud was so low we couldn't see as far as the end of the campsite. So we pulled on our wet weather gear and headed for the Redwood Forest Park, home to a load of 100+ year old redwood trees.

Can't see the wood....

Barking up the wrong tree

Cycling - a green mode of transport

Nice weather for this lot

Minty's camouflage outfit left a lot to be desired

A sheep with a black eye; It all started when someone said 'who are ewe looking at'