Coromandel, the Firth of Thames, and back to Northland

We drove up the west coast of the Coromandel this time and arrived in Coromandel Town (often it's just called Coromandel, but the "Town" is added to remove confusion). Perhaps not surprisingly, it rained. We hung out in the very convenient covered picnic area, chatted with folks biking around in the rain (poor souls), and finished the last of our Marlborough wine. Not a bad day after all!

The next day it was cloudy, crazy windy, but not raining. We took the narrow and winding road lined with gnarled pohutakawa up the coast toward the tip of the peninsula, having to stop for about 10 minutes at one point while some trucks added fresh gravel and a roller tamped it down along the one-lane road. We also encountered fresh gravel that had not been rolled, which was a bit of a slippery ride. Oh and this road is right on the coast, with a friendly cliff dropping into the water often only a few inches from your tires. Exciting! We got to Port Jackson at the north end and continued along the road intending to get to the coastal walkway. However we found a ford of which we could not determine the depth. It had been raining, remember, so we decided to just turn around and go back to Port Jackson. On our way back we passed the shuttle bus that takes tourists to the walkway from the Thames area; it was equipped with a snorkel. Next time we need one of those. Anyway we got back to Port Jackson and parked at the beach, where we ate lunch took a walk along the beach. Our way back was fun as we had to close our eyes to keep out the whipping sand. We eventually made it back, and got the pleasure of driving back down the loose gravel road at the edge of the cliff. The road crew had made good progress though, and the really slippery spots had been packed down a bit. We did feel really bad for the motorcycle guy that was coming down the road. On the plus side, the views were gorgeous and this bit of coastal driving was Aaron's favorite in all of New Zealand. Highly recommended and better than the Bay of Islands or the South Island West Coast. (we've included a picture of our car, "Larry", hanging out on the coast here as we get ready to sell him next week)

From the tip of the peninsula we made our way down to Opoutere, to the same YHA we had stayed at before. Our first order of business was to go out and get more cockles, though unfortunately our visit coincided with low tides around dawn and dusk so we didn't get to eat them until after dinner. The cockles were much lower quality than last time--smaller and with more barnacles. The ones we collected still tasted great though. We walked through the hostel's bush walk which had a great variety of trees and birds right next to the camp.  Hilary spent some time jumping on the trampoline, and was less successful with the walking stilts... gotta love Opoutere.

The next day we took a walk along the beach, which borders a shorebird preserve (the nesting sites above high tide are fenced off but the beach is accessible). The morning was decent weather and we had a nice walk. After lunch we went out to the "summit" hike up to the hill overlooking the hostel and the estuary. The tops of the hill is an old pa [fortified village] site, and you can still see where they dumped cockle and pipi shells. It started to rain on us near the top of the hill, but it was just a light rain and the views were nice.

That night, and all the next day, was the BIG STORM. The weather service had been putting out warnings for most of the week and the computer models basically predicted Armageddon over both islands. The hostel management offered us tent/campervan folk the option of using their empty dorm rooms for the night to ride out the storm indoors; we didn't but it was very nice of them. Turns out the Coromandel got mostly grazed. It rained all right, but it wasn't too bad. The gale force winds did show up the next morning, and blew rain bands at the edge of the storm through every 15 minutes or so. But the big rain was near the Strait, and boy were we glad to not be in Whanganui, Wellington, or Blenheim for the storm. It was a good day to stay in and watch The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire (the Swedish ones). We don't have the last one, unfortunately.

The day after the storm the weather was actually not too bad. We drove around to Miranda, on the other side of the Firth of Thames. This is the area where EcoQuest is based, and Hilary spent a lot of time here during her program. We visited the park where they did a lot of walking, running, and learning how to drive a stick. The trail she used to run on had been redone, which was sad.

After our park walk we went to the Miranda Shorebird Center, where Hilary had done some work with EcoQuest and the guy behind the counter knew a bunch of the folks she remembered. We rented some $5 binoculars and took the 2 km walk to the hides near the shore. Lots of birds, and it was super fun to have binoculars to get a nice close view.

Back at the holiday park, we played petanque and jumped on the trampoline. Fun! We also got free access to the hot pools fed from nice sulfury springs and spent some time hanging out in there, though it was only 38 C and not hot enough for Hilary.

The next day we took the coast road up the Firth and then through Auckland, stopping eventually outside Warkworth in the town of Sandspit. After getting a spot at the camp, we drove a short way up the coast to Goat Island, where there is a marine reserve and a popular snorkeling area. We rented wetsuits since the water is still only 19 C (brrr!). Turns out Hilary had been here before too, although it's been very built up in the last 9 years. It was wickedly busy, with a lame glass-bottom boat (the water is only a few meters deep...) and tons of kids in some sort of class. We snorkeled around for awhile with the tide bringing in some lovely cold water. The conditions were pretty crappy; the bottom was very stirred up and there was mostly just kelp and snapper. We did see a bunch of leatherjackets, but the promised eagle and sting rays never appeared. Oh and it was super cold.

Back in Sandspit we checked out the cute "frontier town" full of old cars and shops full of vintage stuff. The holiday park is actually rather nice, though a little old-looking. We camped out in the vintage theater-seating TV room and picked Shrek 2 out of their selection of G-rated movies.

From Sandspit we continued north to Whangarei. If the weather cooperates, we'll do some more snorkeling and/or diving along the Tutukaka coast or the Poor Knights before we leave.