Sorry that this is a little late. We have 90% secured work and the job hunt is coming to an end. Sorry to have ignored the blog for a while. We promise to get you all caught up soon!!
We spent 3 days in the Coromandel Peninsula which is a stunning place filled with bays and beaches. This is definitely similar to ‘The Hamptons’ of New York without the “snobby & elite” type atmosphere. It is a laid back place with a lot of stunning beach front houses. We spent 2 days in the town of Coromandel. There isn't actually a whole lot to do here. Looking at the map I thought it was right on the water and we could do lots of kayaking and try some stand up paddle boards. However, Coromandel is quite a bit inland and sits on a marsh. So we didn't get up to as much as we planned. To be honest, since it was the last 3 days of our adventure and we were nearing the 50 day mark of sleeping in a camper van, we were both feeling quite done with the camper and doing hikes. The weather also wasn't very cooperative so we relaxed and watched The All Blacks take on the Aussies in a nearby pub. We are slowly but surely learning the rules of Rugby (mostly thanks to Wikipedia!)
We made our way across the winding roads along the coast and across the peninsula and made a few stops along the way. First stop was Cook’s beach, just to say I was there. Next stop was a 45min hike down to Cathedral Cove which is a stunning beach in the middle of the Cathedral Cove marine reserve. It was really beautiful down there and the hike was well worth it.
We then ventured to the famous tourist trap “Hot Water Beach.” This is a small piece of the beach that has a hot spring coming up from the sand and draining into the ocean. You can dig 5m down and reach 50-degree temperatures. We arrived with our tourist spade in hand to dig our own little hot pool. You can only do this at low tide and when we got to the right spot on the beach it was packed with people. At this point traveling in New Zealand in the middle of “winter” has left us a little spoiled since we haven’t had to deal with any crowds anywhere; so needless to say we weren't in a sharing mood. We tried to work around the crowds but anywhere Neal dug a hole all we could find was cold ocean water. After 3 holes with no luck we just found a warm spot and wiggled our feet down into the sand, where we were was actually really hot and we stayed there for about 2 seconds before our feet felt burning. At this point Neal and I just shrugged our shoulders and said “Been there, done that” and left to get some lunch and drinks.
After our stint in the Coromandel we headed back to Hamilton for one last visit with Vaughn, Maxine & Nicole. We really got to experience farm life as Vaughn took us around for the morning and we got to see 3 calves being delivered. Needless to say it isn't a whole lot different from human births; you do what you have to get the calf out (as you will see in Neal’s detailed photos below!) We packed up our camper and collected our suitcases they were holding on to for us and left for Auckland to return our camper van We truly appreciated having a home away from home in Hamilton.
We spent 2 nights in Auckland running errands and seeing some of the “family” members of Jeff & Jess. Now we head off to another adventure in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands!! We are very ready for warm beaches and cold drinks!!
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