Living La Vida Loca

It is such a pleasure having a home base to return to while venturing out and exploring a new country.  We have fallen in love with New Zealand AND our “host” family (Thank you, Gareth and Kula, Aston and Tamara!), and are so looking forward to more exchanges in the future – we already have a few planned elsewhere – but that’s for another day. 

Our final junket out on the North Island included the gorgeous Coromandel Peninsula. The Coromandel Peninsula extends 85 kilometres north from the western end of the Bay of Plenty, forming a natural barrier to protect the Hauraki Gulf and the Firth of Thames in the west from the Pacific Ocean to the east. It is 40 kilometres wide at its broadest point. It’s only 1.5 hour drive from Auckland.

While it’s not a long drive from the North Shore where we’d been staying, it’s a very winding and narrow road most of the way.  Never mind that both Andrew and I had to relearn how to drive on the other side of the road from home, there really is very little room on either side of a car except on the main highways.  Andrew definitely gets the hero award for his driving gumption – I did some of the driving during our trip but he took the lion’s share…especially going to the Coromandel.  We stayed in a beautiful town, Hahei, on the upper east side of the peninsula, and were really lucky to have chosen an amazing Airbnb that was truly a secluded tropical paradise. 

The owners not only maintained the wonderful old two story house that we stayed in, but had other lodgings on their 100 acre+ homestead that included an even larger house and a yurt. They live at the bottom of a steep hill that runs through a lovely park overlooking Cooks Bay.

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One of the days we wandered down to their house and took some kayaks out on the bay – Tori, who had never been on a kayak, immediately went to nirvana and swore she’d take up the sport at home.

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We took an afternoon and visited one of the most popular and truly breathtaking spots on the Coromandel – Cathedral Cove. People had warned us that it would surely be very crowded, but we found that crowded by NZ standards is far less daunting than in the US…there were perhaps two dozen other people on the wide expanse of beach taking in the natural beauty – no big deal. While there are many gorgeous beaches in New Zealand, this is by far the most dramatic.  A huge rock formation towers over the beach area, sprouting up just off shore…a tunnel carved from the adjacent hillside serves as a magical pass through from one beach section to the next, with the sound of waves crashing echo through the passage.

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We did have a bit of an adventure while touring on very winding and gravel roads…at one point I said to Andrew that I thought the car sounded a bit funny…like maybe a flat. No way, he said – just the road is uneven. Right. Soon enough we stopped to get gas and a local in front of us came over and said “Do you know you have a flat?” Mom’s always right. So bad was the puncture that we had to put some air in and drive about 30 miles to a tire shop. In the end, we badly needed a new tire and looking at the damaged one we could have had a major blow out if we drove longer on it! Whew!

Our parting dinner in Hahei was at a small church that had been converted to a sweet little restaurant, aptly named The Church Bistro. The setting was unusual and the food was the most haute cuisine we had the entire trip. Good for a little change along the way.

On to Rotorua!

Esther