Coramandel Peninsula

The drive from Hamilton was beautiful. The Coramandel Peninsula has some spectacular scenery, especially on the coast road. We travelled up the east coast after picking up some fruit and veg. at a roadside stall, did you know that you can get golden kiwi fruit which doesn’t taste as acidic as green kiwifruit.


We stopped at a Coramandel Town which is an old gold mining town when there was a gold rush back in the 1870s and again reminded me of the old American pictures of gold rush towns. We stopped later at Whitianga, pronounced Fitianga for some reason, a very nice laid back sort of place where everybody is friendly and that goes for all of NZ we have been to so far.
We carried on to the Motel we were staying at in a place called Tairua, probably the best place we have stopped at up to now. Over the next couple of days we travelled around the area to the various places of interest. One of these was called Hot Water Beach where about two hours either side of high tide you can dig your own spa pool on the beach. There is a volcanic rock formation underground and the water that seeps down is forced back up again by ‘convection?’ so if you dig a hole it gets filled with hot water, hence the name.
Just up the road was Hahei beach a lovely stretch of white sand and if you followed the road round you come to Cathedral Cove car park where the track starts to the named cove. The sign showed that it was a 40 minute walk but what it didn’t tell you is that this is steep up and down and half way there you realise what you face on the way back. The walk was certainly worth it as the cove was stunning, apparently one of the best 10 beaches in the world, the attached photo does not do it justice. We did eventually get back to the car park; Sheila must be getting fitter, only a couple of rest stops.


One day we went up the local extinct volcano called Paku Hill, you can drive near to the top but there is a steep walkway to the summit. There were 360 degree spectacular views so I took a series of photos that I’ll have to stitch together so you can really appreciate it.
I am running out of superlatives to describe NZ any suggestions would be appreciated and I did say superlatives not expletives.

Hamilton

Hamilton was just another city but it is NZ’s largest inland city and about the size of Stockport. The Waikato River flows right through it and there is a river walk that runs down both banks of the river. There are also lots of parks and gardens which we visited as there was not much else to do, we walked around Rotaroa Lake which is right in the centre of the city, around 4Km. We visited Hamilton Gardens which was quite interesting, some strange sights though. Two elderly men sailing remote control boats round a lake complete with customized trolleys which looked like little girl’s prams. As we were leaving there was a group of Chinese people stood in a semi-circle round a tape player, they were stood like statues with arms straight and hands clutching an invisible stick, very bizarre.
The England U17 girls playing in the Fifa World Cup were staying at the same hotel and they managed to reach the semi-finals on a penalty shoot out. I told one of them that at least one England team can win a penalty shoot out.
I have learnt to talk Kiwi, which is very easy, all you have to do is replace every ‘e’ for an ‘i’ for example ten would be pronounced tin. However you do have to be careful as I got my neck sunburnt and you would have to say I’ve got a sunburnt nick or if you were going out on the deck you would be going out on the dick. I am sure there would be lots of others lost in translation. Watch this space.