The Coromandel Peninsula

This past weekend was the Queen's Birthday, so we got a three day weekend and decided to celebrate by driving down to the Coromandel Peninsula. After a dead battery Saturday morning, we drove down and, besides a little overheating along the way, made our way onto the peninsula and relaxed at Paranui Beach for a little while. Then we drove to a small town Taranui and did a short climb to the top of a volcano that offered a great view of the harbor/inlet. From there it was time to find somewhere to spend the night, so we made our way up the coast a little and ended up setting up camp on a nice piece of grass at the car park for Cathedral Cove.

Grass and Sand Dune and Family at Paranui Beach

Fortunately no one bothered us throughout the night and I woke up early the next morning, walked ten meters, and watched the sunrise over the Pacific for the very first time. Next we went and experienced Hot Water Beach, which is this sweet beach where there's thermal pools underneath the sand, so you dig holes during low tide and the hot thermal water mixes in with some of the ocean water and you have a natural spa on the beach. It sounds unreal, especially since I don't know how many times back home I've dug holes and wished for just this. So we hung out there for a little while and then drove back to the car park where we had camped the previous night and hiked to Cathedral Cove. This is where they filmed the opening scene to Prince Caspian, and hearing that beforehand may have made my expectations unrealistic, but it was still really beautiful and so relaxing to hang there.

There's a rock and there's the cave at Cathedral Cove

It was right after this when our car decided our fate for the rest of the weekend. After a couple times shutting off while we were still in motion and multiple naps on the side of the road while letting it cool off, we turned it in to a mechanic in Tairua and spent the night at a hostel there. That gave us plenty of time to play some mean Ping Pong, and meant the next day entailed racing each other back to Auckland via hitch hiking. The well-off weekenders from Auckland were quite reluctant to offer up some rides at first, but after a while we all got picked up and made our way back to town. And that was the weekend.

See? It was relaxing. Here's my buddy Jort at Cathedral Cove