Thursday 6th October
The weather had been throwing the occasional shower at us for a few days but the bulk truly hit overnight Thursday morning. The rain was coming down in sheets and the wind was howling. We weren't in a rush to leave New Plymouth but it made no difference, by the time we drove out at 10am, it was still going ballistic. We followed highway 3 out of town, with no significant towns to drive through until arriving at our destination. We did make one quick stop just off the highway at mike’s brewery. In our Lonely Planet book, it said it was well worth a visit to pick up a pale ale or two, which we did, sticking them in the back of the car to drink at a later date. The remainder of the drive was as wet as the Tasman Sea we were driving past. The road had clearly bore the brunt of the recent weather too, as we passed a couple of significant land slips that made the going quite slow. We cleared a hill, passed through a valley and finally started to see a bit of life in various towns. Our destination for the evening was the town of Otorohanga. Due to the weather we'd booked up a cabin for the night, which was fortunate, as the weather wasn't any better 200km north of where we'd come from. We stashed a few items in the cabin before heading out for a walk around Otorohanga. Despite being a tiny town and us being on a street parallel to the town centre, we managed to make an absolute meal out of getting there. The receptionist had told us to turn left and jump across the railway lines through a gap in the fence but when we got there we couldn't see the gap. Coming from the UK we also have an innate repulsion of crossing train tracks that aren't at a crossing. We decided to walk down the road and find an alternative route. Instead, we ended up walking round a small lake that dumped us out back on the road we were staying on. Eventually, we found the supermarket, which meant we were heading in the right direction. We made a quick stop in the shop to pick up some food for dinner and then carried on to the town centre. There wasn't much to see, so we picked up a pin badge (which we weren't expecting to find) and headed to the iSite information centre. Our campsite lacked wifi, so we utilised the free wifi in the library to catch up with various things. When we were done we came out opposite the Ed Hillary walkway. It didn't look official and as far as we knew we had no connection with the town of Otorohanga (he was born and lived in South Auckland), so it seemed an odd thing. The walk was short and consisted of various display cases that contained everything New Zealand. There was a kiwi one, a marmite one (they have their own marmite over here and for some reason they are dead proud of it but it's nowhere near as good as our Marmite) and even one dedicated to the Pavlova, which the Kiwi’s reckon they invented and the Aussie’s reckon they invented. The walk led us to the Otorohanga train station, so we decided to try and find the route across back to the campsite. From our different point of view it was easy, so we hopped across and we're back in the cabin just before the heavens opened to give everything another soaking. We spent the evening playing some more Cribbage and reading our books. We had a simple dinner of pasta and passata with some homemade garlic bread. We were full, so we deemed it a success. Back in the cabin we battened down the hatches for the evening.
Friday 7th October
It wasn't raining when we got out of bed but there was a very ominous black cloud slowly making its way towards the campsite. It hit when we were eating breakfast and continued most of the way of the drive to the Waitomo Caves. The caves are just off the main highway and one of the biggest tourist attractions in New Zealand. There are 3 caves that draw in the tourists but we were only visiting one. The 2 we weren't visiting were dry and just simply caves. Our target was the most popular one, the glow worm cave. Our tour was booked up for 11:30, so we arrived about half an hour before in preparation. We visited an info centre to pass the time and picked up a pin badge and then made our way to the start. We were picked up bang on 11:30 by our tour guide and led down towards the cave. It was pitch black inside so Charlotte had to lead me by the hand whilst we were ducking under some low hanging rock. We passed through a few chambers before reaching what is known as the cathedral. It's called the cathedral due to it being the largest room in the cave system. It really was huge and through the gloom we could just about make out the impressive features. There were huge stalactites (they're the ones that hang from the ceiling) and a few stalagmites dotted around the floor and also an impressive column tucked away in one corner, that the guide told us only joined up (the stalactite and stalagmite) around 200 years ago. We spent around 25 minutes looking around the caves and were then led further in to the depths to board a boat to have a look at the glow worms. The glow worms prefer the damp and the dark so the boat was the easiest way to see them. We wobbled on to the boat and the guide pulled us round the water with a piece of rope. Initially I struggled to see the little glowing worms but I started to catch them out of the corner of my eyes. Charlotte had no such problem and could see them easily. They were impressive but, we couldn't see them moving, so they could have been lights put there by anyone to make money out of billable tourists such as ourselves and the Chinese people behind us constantly flouting the “no photos allowed” rule. That's just us being cynical though, after all, we suspected the whole Terracotta Army in Xi’an was made by someone looking to exploit tourists. We’re sure it's all legitimate. After the boat ride we clambered back up the dark steps and exited back out in to the blinding light of outside. It took me a little while to get accustomed to the light but we made it back to the car without incident. We were now faced with a long drive north to the town of Coromandel on the Coromandel Peninsular, which we'd heard is supposed to be really nice. We left the caves behind us and headed towards the rather complicated looking road system around the city of Hamilton. We'd taken the wrong turn on our way south, so I wasn't confident we'd get it right the second time around. It didn't take us long before we'd taken a wrong turn and we were slightly lost. We ended up in the town of Cambridge and had to take a guess which way to head as there seemed to be a surplus of road signs around. We found our way, only to take another wrong turn a couple of minutes down the line. We were both a bit stressed out at this point, so we pulled over, calmed down for a few minutes, got the route and worked our way to the right road. The rest of the journey went without a hitch (mainly because it was one straight road) and the road along the peninsular was really picturesque running right along the coast of the Hauraki Gulf. We found the town of Coromandel nestled on a picturesque bay, glinting in the afternoon sun (yes, it had finally popped its head out!). We'd decided to brave the tent for the evening having splashed the cash on cabins for the past 5 nights. The ground was fairly wet but we reckoned we'd be okay. We spent our evening sheltering from the rain in the tv room, attacking the potatoes for dinner once again. Jacket potatoes and beans were fast becoming a favourite.
Saturday 8th October
We didn't end up getting the best night sleep. We'd erected our tent in the only possible part of grass that wasn't waterlogged but this meant it was right next to a line of cars. They seemed to be coming and going all night which woke us up every hour. To counteract that, we did stay in bed a little longer than we should have but we're still up and packed away for the 10 o'clock check out. We didn't linger in the town of Coromandel as there wasn't much to shout about, so we started our drive across the Coromandel peninsula towards the town of Whitiamga. To get there, we had 2 options. The boring sealed highway or the fun unsealed “309”. The 309 had such a reputation there was actually a pamphlet advertising it at the campsite. There were a number of stops along the road that we'd eyed up, so it would provide us with a little bit of entertainment and not just be a point a to point b sort of thing. Not long after turning off we passed a number of wild pigs that were sniffing out food on the road and we had seen that they were looked after by a man called Stuart. Our first stop was at a theme park called the Waterworks. We weren't there for the theme park though. The café’s milkshakes came pretty highly rated so we pulled over for some kid-morning refreshments. Whilst we were waiting at the counter we noticed a t-shirt that said “I survived the 309” which didn't make us feel too good about the road. We rung the service bell for what seemed like hours before attracting anyone's attention but stuck with it and returned to the car with a banana and Jaffa orange milkshake. They were good, tasty and thick and were gone in seconds. Not far along the road was a stop at Waiau Falls. They were set just back from the road, so we had to follow a stodgy pathway down to where we could get a decent view. A quick snap and we were off to the final stop along the road. They were a grove of Kauri trees tucked away in the bush away from the road. We had seen Kauri trees when we were in Northland near Kaitaia and they were the biggest in New Zealand and therefore the world. So we came to these new ones not expecting to be particularly impressed by them. As is procedure when visiting Kauri trees we gave our feet a good scrubbing and rinse to clear off any dirt that may contain the disease that's killing the huge beasts. I'm not embarrassed to say that when we got to the trees we ate our thoughts. They were just as impressive as their Northland neighbours. They weren't as thick around the trunk or as old but we still stood in awe at the incredible trees. There was a small grove followed by a few Siamese Kauri's, which are caused by 2 seedlings joining together when they grow. We left the peaceful monsters behind and continued on our merry way to the town of Whitianga. The rest of the road was very windy and narrow but we got to Whitianga in one piece. We parked up and wandered round the town. It seemed like a nice town, situated right in a sandy beach overlooking a few island and the Pacific Ocean. It was a bit windswept however and more than once we got a face full of sand and gravel flung in to our face by a particularly strong gust. By the time we'd wandered around the town we fancied some lunch but were let down when the restaurant we'd eyed up was closed due to it being the offseason. To make up for the disappointment, we found a fish and chip shop and got a serving of snapper and chips each. Upon receiving our order, we made our way down to the harbour, found a bench and tucked in. The bench was right in the firing line of the wind and a few seagulls scattered themselves down wind in the hope a rogue chip would break free but we didn't let the little blighters get a crumb. They weren't as good as the fish and chips we'd picked up in Wellington but they did the job. With Whitianga explored it was time for a stop by the supermarket and a new tank of petrol before setting off south for our campsite for the night. The campsite was at a place called Hot Water Beach, which may seem like an odd name but it will become clearer in a second. Upon check in, we were offered a free shovel due to us being members of the campsite chain. We were lucky, as the tide was working out just right for our visit. The beach has its name due to there being a hot water spring that bubbles up through the sand when the tide is out. When the tide is out and the hot springs are bubbling the tourists descend in swathes to enjoy a dip in some hot spring water. Today, we were joining them and grabbed our spade and our swimsuits and walked down to the beach. When we arrived there was already a large group of people on the sand digging their holes, despite the tide having not really gone out yet. We stood around and considered our options for a while to see where people were congregating. The first hole we dug got mobbed by a few waves and wasn't actually very warm. We were spot on with our second attempt though. We could see steam rising from some holes, so started digging in from of those ones, where there was a large gap that nobody had excavated yet. They hadn't dug there for a valid reason though. The water pouring across the sand was absolutely boiling and you couldn't stand bare foot for more than a second. Our hole was just to the side of the boiling trickle, so we thought we'd get the best of both worlds. When the hole was dug, we took the plunge and were pretty pleased with our location. We could feel the hot water entering our pool through the sand and managed to burn ourselves a few times from lingering in the spring. After sitting around for a while we felt it was time to head back for a shower and some food, so we pulled ourselves from our hot pool and collected our things. We'd had a fantastic time on Hot Water Beach and the satisfaction from digging your own hot spring was a pretty good feeling. The only drawback was the hoarders of other people on the beach eyeing up your lovingly dug hot pool. We barely stepped foot out of our pool and some cheapskate was jumping in but we forgot about it, picked up our towels and headed home. Removing all the sand made us feel much better and ready for some dinner after what had been a tiring day. With passata galore to get rid of, we had it with pasta and some reduce garlic bread we'd picked up earlier in the day. The campsite was a pretty busy one, so we were keeping our fingers crossed for a good nights sleep with zero disturbances.
James and Charlotte
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