2006/05 NZ trip - Coromandel |
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Then we were off a few miles down the coast to Hot Water Beach. The beachhas a hot springs which delivers hot water to the zone between low and high tide, so we wanted to get there before the tide came in and covered the zone. There’s a little village at Hot Water Beach and a café that rents shovels, so we collected ours and headed for the sands.
There were a number of speculative holes from earlier visitors, but they were all cold. There was a young family already digging, but they didn’t seem to have any luck. Then we found the spot, with bubbles coming up through the sand. These were steam bubbles and this water was seriously hot, scalding your feet if you weren’t careful. I dug a pool for me and the family’s kids, and we’d sit in and get over-hot and then a wave would come in and dump cold water all over us. If we tried to get our bums out of the cold water, then our hands and feet would sink into the sand and get cooked! Just to add to the mix, the rain arrived too! Eventually, the tide defeated us and we retreated back to the car park for breakfast.
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Hot Water Beach (3.23) |
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The weather also went from wet and windy to cold, wet, and windy. I’d been hoping to rent kayaks to go paddling through Cathedral Cove, but that
wasn’t going to work with the weather we had. Instead, we decided to go exploring the mountains, and drove up the rock and mud track that links Coroglen with Tupa on the west 
coast. For a second or two at the top we had great viewsof the mountain tops and then everything disappeared into wet fog. On the other side of the mountains we had sunshine for about one minute in five, and heavy rain for the other four. There were rivers and waterfalls and giant kauri trees to see, so it ended up as a good trip. On the way down we saw one of the most vivid rainbows ever, 
viewed over a scenic corrugated iron farmstead!
On the western side of the Coromandel we retraced our steps from the previous day for a while but then took the logging road over the mountains from Te Kouma over to Kaimarama, another narrow and greasy track, but this time shared with logging trucks and a bulldozer transporter. An exciting drive! I took hikes to Waihi Falls, 
probably a dream spot on a hot summer’s day, and then to another Kauri grove, a really mystical spot, with the great trees, the gloom beneath a riot of fern trees, and the only sound the running of water. After all this we finished the logging road in the dark and still had a long drive back to Hahei and our camping spot.
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Coromandel (2.26) |
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Tuesday May 23rd
I took an early morning walk over the protective sand dune to take a look at the sun rising over Hahei Bay. I took a few nice pictures, but the incoming clouds 
soon wiped out the colour and then dumped rain on us again. Sandie managed to get a brief look at the beach between showers.
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Hahei Beach (0.39) |  |
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Then, we were off to Cathedral Cove, just a short distance up the coast. The plan was to have breakfast there, but we found that it was a 45 minute hike from the car park, and that we would be in another race with the tide. The cove is accessed through a tunnel in the 
headland, the “cathedral”, and that is under water except at low tide.
It was a long muddy hike up and over the cliff tops, but we made it down to the beach in time to walk through the tunnel. The coves were spectacular, with great cliffs, se
a stacks, and the cathedral arch. The sea gave us a few waves, but was mostly peaceful. Showers were still rolling through but nothing serious.
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Cathedral Arch (9.28) |
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We had the sea shore to ourselves, except for a young guy from Peru who was working at Auckland’s airport and visiting all parts of New Zealand. Sandie met up with a covey of California quails, more imports from overseas. We’d last seen these in Arizona down on the Mexican border, but they seemed to be thriving in the New Zealand coastal climate. We got back at 11.30 for a somewhat late breakfast, and by then the rain was beating down.