COROMANDEL PENINSULA
When talking to Nikki's dad earlier this week, he said we should be careful what we post on the internet about Scott's school here because if the UofC finds out about how slack it's been, they might decide to change their minds and not give him credit for it. Haha. First week back at school after two weeks off, and classes cancelled on Thursday and Friday. Perfect! We needed a long weekend for this trip. And just for the record, we could have technically left on Tuesday night, but Scott was responsible and worked on some assignments on Wednesday and Thursday.
We left at about 2:30pm on Thursday and were off to the Coromandel Peninsula. When asking people here what their favorite place on the North Island is, this is often the answer. So we were happy to have a little extra time to spend here.
From Hamilton, we drove the 125km stretch to Whangamata, taking us just about 2 hours. The first part of the drive was through familiar farmland.
But just past the town of Paeroa we cut east and drove through the Karangahake Gorge. Let's just say there were several close calls of puking out the window on this road.
Then we drove along the Pacific Coast Highway where if you looked left you had views of farmland and classic New Zealand hills, and if you looked right you had beautiful views of the ocean.
We made it to Whangamata (without vomiting) just before the i-site closed and found out where to camp for the night. This lead us to a place called Broken Hills Campground, which was about 30 minutes north of Whangamata, most of which was on a gravel road. It was worth it because we found ourselves in a very isolated, quiet place with a beautiful view of the cliffs of the Broken Hills.
Broken Hills in the moonlight
We had a romantic moonlit dinner under the stars next to Bertie. (Mmmmm... Moroccan lamb stew), played some Backgammon and tucked ourselves into Bertie for a good night sleep.
We woke up to a misty cool morning, had some breakfast and made our way to our next destination.
We drove another hour up the coast to a place called Hot Water Beach.
We had to time this just right because you can only experience this beach within a couple hours either side of low tide. We looked it up and knew that low tide was at about 10am. Luckily, our timing was perfect.
Hot Water Beach - Doesn't look like much from here
But once you get around the rocks on the left of the picture, it turns into this...
You either bring your own shovel or rent one from the nearby cafe for $5, and dig a hole in the sand to make your own pool. There is a natural spring of hot water bubbling up through the sand, but you have to dig down to the water table to find it. If you are just one foot outside this area, it is cold. And if you dig in some areas, it is hot enough to burn you. But if you hit just the right spot, you can create your very own hot tub in the sand. The hot spots at the top of the area trickle towards the ocean and spread out a bit, filling all of the pools that people dig with steamy, clear water.
We paired up with a couple from Alaska and dug a great big hole that had a boiling hot water source combined with a cool one, creating the perfect pool.
We then adopted another pool from someone who left, but created a stream from our original one so we could use some of the boiling hot water to make our new pool the perfect temperature. After all our hard work (OK, let's be honest...Scott's hard work), we laid out in our pool and relaxed here for over an hour.
As we sat in it, the sand would gradually fill in the pool, and we'd have to dig it out again to keep it deep enough. We stayed in our pool long enough to watch the lower pools get destroyed by the incoming tide, a couple times taking distracted people by surprise when the cold waves came crashing in. All the hard work was worth it because we left feeling super relaxed. Not surprisingly, we continued to find sand in every nook and cranny for the rest of the weekend. Too bad Bertie doesn't have a shower.
Then we drove 10 minutes up the road to the town of Hahei. We looked into renting kayaks for the afternoon to explore the Cathedral Cove area, but were disappointed to learn that the only kayak company in town only did expensive guided tours. Not really appealing to us, we decided we'd just hike along the coast to Cathedral Cove instead.
We drove the the start of the trail, made some sandwiches for lunch, topped up our lunch with a hot dog from the food stand, and set off on the hike.
The track veered off down to Gemstone Bay, which had a bouldery beach but is supposed to be great for snorkeling. We left our snorkel gear at home, so we just took in the beautiful scenery and continued on our way.
Gemstone Bay
The next detour off the main track was down to a place called Stingray Bay.
This was a beautiful bay with boulders and sandy beach. Across the bay there is a great big cliff face and as you can see in the picture above, a sea cave. As you can imagine, Scott decided to go explore the cave. And as you can also imagine, it did not go without incident.
Scott taking on high tide in attempt to reach the cave
Nikki's Perspective: I stayed on the south side of the bay, watching out for the Orcas that had been spotted near this bay earlier. The next thing I see from across the bay is Scott on one of the boulders, jumping up and down, hands on his head, in only his boxers. Not phased by it at all, I went on with my business, thinking he probably just got splashed by a cold wave. A couple minutes later, Scott came walking up the beach in his dry boxers.
Scott's Perspective: I went running along the sandy beach to the north side of the bay, where the tide was just coming up along the boulders. The water was only knee-high, but waves made it come up a bit higher, so I stripped down to my boxers to wade through the water and get around the boulders. I took a few steps in. About to take my next step, I look down to see a big black stingray right where I was about to step. Half-way through the step, I changed the direction of my step to my right, to avoid stepping on it, only to find another big black stingray on that side of me too. I jumped back up onto the boulder, and had a little bit of a freak out while I remembered that the Crocodile Hunter guy died from one of these, picked up my pants and walked back along the beach back to where Nikki was sitting.
Scott was not impressed with Nikki's initial reaction of laughter when she heard what happened. But she soon realized how close he was to stepping on them, and how close he was to being stung by it if he had stepped on one of them. Still pretty funny though.
With Scott's adrenaline running full speed, and Nikki still giggling a bit to herself, we continued along the main track. It climbed uphill to a high point overlooking the coastline, through a small bit of farmland, and into a pine forest where it then descended to Cathedral Cove.
Cathedral Cove
Scott walking through the Cove
Sandstone formations creating little islands and large cliff faces
Nothing like a little meditation by the sea
After the hike back, we drove another 30 minutes north to a town called Whitianga. (I don't know if we have ever explained that in the Moari language, 'wh' is pronounced closer to an 'f'' sound. So this town is pronounced fit-i-anga).
After arriving here, we walked around the town, scoped out a good seafood restaurant and a place to watch the rugby game. We also found a place by the marina to park Bertie for the night.
We had dinner at a place called "Squid's" that everyone recommended for seafood. It was a small and quaint husband and wife operation right beside the water. For a starter we had pork-stuffed squid with five spice, which was pretty good. For mains we shared a smoked seafood platter and a kilo of Coromandel mussels with bread. Everything was really good, smoked kingfish is amazing, and their mussels, although quite different than BC or PEI mussels, are still great.
After dinner we headed straight to the pub to catch the opening ceremonies of the Rugby World Cup. In terms of spectacle, atmosphere, national pride, and emotional investment, this tournament is right on par with what the Vancouver Olympics were for Canada. People are nuts about this rugby thing here. Anyways, the opening ceremonies were interesting, and they were followed by the first game All Blacks vs Tonga. It was a complete slaughter, and by half-time it was 9:30 pm, we were tired, and we figured there was no need to stick around for the rest of the game so we walked back to Bertie and settled in for the night.The next morning, we needed to get across the peninsula to Coromandel Town. There are two routes that will take you there. One is to continue north along the Pacific Coastal Highway until it cuts west and makes its way on a typical Kiwi highway (narrow and winding). The second option takes you along the "309 Road" which basically cuts straight across the peninsula. Of course, we chose the second route.
Yes, it is the shorter route, but definitely not the fastest. It is even more narrow and winding, and mostly gravel. But, there are lots of things to stop and see along the way. We knew what we were in for because we read somewhere that this road presents no problem to the motorist who is prepared to drive steadily and stay well to the left around the corners.Our first stop was at a grove of Kauri trees. We hadn't seen any other cars or people for several kilometers, but when we pulled over to park, we were a little weirded out by a man just hanging out by his truck. He actually ended up being a really friendly pig-hunter, waiting for his buddy and dogs to come back with another pig.
Scott: ANOTHER pig?
Pig-hunter: Yeah. we've got a little one back here already. Wanna see it?
Scott: YES!
He even offered to give us some pig he had in his freezer if we met him in Coromandel later that night.
Recalling the real reason we stopped here, we hiked the short track to the Kauri Grove. It was common in the past for these trees to be logged, because they provided good materials for boats and traditional Maori carvings. This specific area, however, has been protected for several hundred years and has some of the largest remaining Kauri trees.
Left: Siamese Kauri Tree
Above: Tree-hugging
We also stopped at Waiau Falls. It was a small waterfall with a little swimming hole at its base. It was just a couple minutes walk off the main road, making it more of a nice stretch break from driving than anything.
Our next stop claims to be Coromandel's most fun attraction. We have to say...it was SO much fun!
It is called The Waterworks. It is an extremely unique and clever version of an amusement park. Full of water-powered gadgets, sculptures, and things to play with. Lots of things that tell you to turn the wheel to make something move, only to have a shower head above you in a tree spray you with water.
Water Gadget Thingys
It also has an area with self-propelled amusement park style rides (of course all without any safety features that would never fly in Canada) These so called 'rides' were SO much fun. There were no carnies or line ups or even kids. It was just us, and an elderly couple wandering about the place enjoying the step back to our childhood.
SO much fun!
They usually have some animals around, kind of like a petting farm, but with the animals just wandering around freely. But they weren't out when we were there. They have a pig that just had piglets though, and as we were driving out, we saw them on the side of the road.After snapping back into adulthood, we continued on the 309 road a little ways further until we reached Coromandel Town. With all our stops along the way, it took us about 3 hours to get to our final destination, but totally worth it.
Once in Coromandel Town, we wandered around a bit, stopped at the famous Coromandel Smoking Company and tried out a few of their smoked mussels (the only redeeming feature of the town as far as we are concerned) and then found the i-site to check out what we could do for the afternoon. We didn't have much energy at this point from all our running around at Waterworks, so we had a tough time deciding what to do for the afternoon.
After some humming and hawing, Nikki had a light bulb moment. We had planned on hiking up to the Pinnacles the next day, and having done some reading on it, Nikki remembered that there is a backcountry hut up there. So, with not much to do in the town, why not go up to the Pinnacles hut for the night?!
Wondering if it would even be possible at this point, we went back to the i-site to ask about it and were told that it is a great thing to do. At this point it was 1:00pm, and we still had 78km to drive to get to the start of the track (14km of which was gravel road), get our bags, gear, and food packed up, and hike to the hut. The reported time to hike to the hut is about 3 1/2 hours and the sun sets just before 6pm here. So... we booked the hut, and off we went scurrying about to get organized. By far, it was the fastest, most spur of the moment backpacking trip we've ever done. Luckily, Bertie was equipped with everything we needed.
We arrived at the trail head, all packed up and ready to go at about 3:30pm (remember that driving 78km here takes a lot longer than it would back home. Man, we miss straight roads).
And this is when the race against the setting sun began. Luckily, we are fairly fast hikers, and we usually complete routes in less time than is suggested. We really wanted to get to the hut before dark, so we moved at a pretty good hustle.
The hike starts as a wide gravel path, not very steep, that crosses a creek several times. As the path reaches the back of the wide valley, it goes from flat to steep and from gravel to stairs... Stair after endless stair that has either been built out of stones or carved into the dense ash that composes the ground in this region (called `The Rock Staircase`). The track moves through dense jungle as it climbs, but once in a while the forest would thin a bit and we could see back down the valley. Eventually the steep ascent eased off and followed the top of a ridgeline, still climbing steadily, through some huge spires and peaks making its way to the hut.
One great thing about hiking at this time of day is that the light of the setting sun gives everything a wonderful warm glow. It was a beautiful evening to be out wandering around in the backcountry. A few more minutes of the ridge and we caught sight of the Pinnacles.
The Pinnacles Peaks
The sun had just ducked below the horizon as we came over the last ridge, and had the last few hundred metres downhill to the Pinnacles Hut.
With our long legs and deliberate pace, our time was 2 hours 10 minutes. The hut itself is huge and quite modern, and it holds 80 people at capacity. For our night there was 50 or so other hikers.
We staked claim to some bunk beds and made our way to the very busy kitchen to cook dinner. 50 people in a little kitchen was pretty cramped, but what made things a little bit hilarious was that EVERYBODY (except us) was in full-on cooking mode. No dehydrated meals or bagels for dinner here, people were cooking with woks and were cutting up vegetables and raw meat and all kinds of stuff. It was incredible! Nothing like huts back home. Our simple meal of re-heated chili seemed downright boring. Delicious though.
After dinner we cruised back to the bunks and got ready for bed, despite it being only 7:30pm. The temperature was dropping fast and the wind kicked up, and pretty soon we needed to tuck into our sleeping bags to keep warm. The lights were already out in the bunk room, so we played cards for a little while under the light of our headlamps, and then called it a night fairly early.
Morning at the hut came early as people starting getting loud around 6:00 am. We awoke to grey skies and low cloud, low enough to put the Pinnacles into the mist and make the views from the hike in non-existent.
Sad to be forced out by the weather
We knew that there was supposed to be heavy rain moving in by late morning, so we scarfed down some breakfast, packed our bags and started the hike out. It would have been nice to ascend the Pinnacles, but we weren't too sad as the views of hike in had been so stunning. Once again, we had motivation to do the hike quickly, as the rock/ash staircase would be a little slippery in the rain.
Nikki navigating down the rock staircase
Each one of the many stream crossings on the hike has two routes, one where you hop the rocks and one "flood route" where you stray from the main track a bit and take a swing-bridge to get across (another reason to get out of there before the rain started... it`s not very reassuring when they have to have flood routes).
We took the bridge pretty much every time, not because it was flooding, it's just plain fun.
It's strange how things turned out for us: Hike in = 2 hrs 10 min, and got to the hut minutes before the sun set. Hike out = 2 hrs 10 minutes, and got to the camper JUST as it started to rain. Literally seconds away from being drenched. It didn't look like the rain was going to let up any time soon, we were pretty tired, and there wasn't much more we wanted to see in the region, so we gased up Bertie and drove back to Hamilton. It poured rain the whole way. Which was actually kinda nice, since after so many kilometres of rough, dusty, gravel roads, Bertie was due for a good shower.
The Coromandel Peninsula is a really beautiful place. The people are truly friendly and sweet, the seafood is great, and there are a ton of fun things to do. We have heard that in the summer the population in the area nearly doubles with vacationers and tourists. Anyone who travels to North Island NZ should make it here.
To put it all in perspective as to where all this stuff went down, here is a map of the area.
Nikki I love reading your blogs. It reminds me so much of our 3 week trip in 2007. We went to many of the same places you guys are going to. I love seeing the pics. Thanks for sharing your experience!!!
ReplyDeleteChantal