Today we went wandering and ended up on the Coromandel Peninsular. This area appears to be a playground for people from Auckland. As today is new year’s eve, the roads were busy and lots of people everywhere. Still we had a fun day adventuring and visiting new places. The peninsular is south east of Auckland and about three hours drive away. Starting at Thames, we started north up the peninsular. On to Coromandel, a busy but pleasant small town. It looks like it runs on the visiting crowd, local fishermen and the retired population. From here we turned east and ran across the peninsular to the east coast. We hoped to arrive at Hot Water Beach at low tide but miss calculated and ended up there at high tide. This beach has hot water springs bubbling up out of the sand close to the low tide mark. OK we missed them but good to see the families enjoying themselves.
From there we wandered south on the east coast, returning west and back to Auckland. The roads are good but sign posting not so good. We missed a few turn offs and had to do mad about faces on numerous occasions. The roads reminded us of Tasmania, in particular the trip to St Helens or Hellier Gorge. The roads are very windy with very little strait road to be seen. Good fun for driving if you had a driving car not a power deficient Corolla! The scenery is also reminiscent of the north west of Tasmania with lush pastures and numerous small beaches dispersed with rocky cliffs. Being volcanic the area is dominated by volcanic activity all very interesting. From here back to home and then out for a curry. A fitting end to an adventurous day.
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