On Friday morning, I attended my final lecture at Waikato, and possibly the last lecture of my undergraduate degree (fingers crossed, lets hope I pass biology and that all of my credit modifications transfer when I get home). After my lecture was over, I headed back to Orchard Park to finish packing for my trip to Australia. My friend Shelby took a trip down from Auckland to come and pick me up, and we spent the next two nights off the grid in the Coromandel.
I had been hearing about New Zealand’s famous hot water beach and was hoping that I would get the chance to check it out before I leave the country. Luckily, Shelby and her friend Sam (from the UK, WOOFing in NZ) were down for anything, so we hopped in her van and were off. Road trip, woohoo! I can’t tell you how many times that statement was shouted, but you’re about to find out. Also, Shelby had been hearing about this beach since she moved here as well, and we were all very keen to find it.
The trip was off to a great start, the weather was nice, despite the chill from the wind it was a sunny day, so all good. We pull out of the carpark and Sam tells me this is Shelby’s first time driving manual transmission. OH! Okay cool… I kinda wish you didn’t tell me that. But it was a bit of an exaggeration, she had been driving the van for a week now and she didn’t seem nervous at all, so no problem, road trip, woohoo! The next question was whether or not I knew the way to the Coromandel from Hamilton, nope, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out, road trip, woohoo! Get to the bottom of Silverdale, take a right instead of a left, better check the map, turned the wrong way, good thing for roundabouts, road trip, woohoo! Oh and by the way, the gas meter is broken, so we don’t actually know how much gas (petrol for the non-US natives) we have left in the tank, but we’re gonna see how far we can get before it runs out so we know the milage of a full tank. Don’t worry, we’ve got a can of gas in the back, road trip, woohoo!
After the first hiccup, we were getting along pretty well and made it all the way up to the bottom of the peninsula before the tank finally emptied. OK cool, no problem, lets just fill it up and be on our way… oh wait, now the engine won’t start… greaaaat. So we sat there in the van in the middle of nowhere, which is pretty much everywhere in New Zealand and hoped that the engine just needed some time to rest and for the gas to set in or something. If worse comes to worse, we’ll just call roadside assistance, road trip, woohoo! We lucked out again and the engine started after about 20 minutes on the side of the road. Not wanting to take any more chances, we stopped at the next gas station and filled up the tank completely and got some engine oil, just for good measure.
I think now would be a good time to mention that the road signage in New Zealand is not the greatest, in fact signage in general, not the greatest. Throughout this trip we ended up passing turns and having to backtrack to get to the turnoffs we needed. But we had no strict schedule to adhere to apart from getting me to the airport on time Sunday morning, so it was all good. And after each missed turn, you know exactly what we had to say about it, road trip, woohoo!
Needing a break for lunch, we decided to pick a town to stop in, and based on the large font size on our map of a town called Pauanui, we thought it might be a good place to stop. Our rationale, the larger font size must correspond with the size of the town, look at Auckland, that font is huge. Flash forward to Pauanui after a brief stop at a piss shop (Kiwi lingo for liquor store), and we were entering Pauanui, while adopting a new statement to shout, simply, PauaNUI! We passed by the main entrance of Pauanui, which apparently is much like a gated community, think Kapoho, where the rich old people of New Zealand buy beach front properties and the passers by realize quickly that they don’t belong. At the entrance, we get stopped by a woman dressed like Annie Oakley waving around a pistol with a bucket in hand and a smile on her face. I’m not kidding here, she was actually stopping our van with a pistol in hand, of course it was just a prop pistol, but a pistol nonetheless - Kiwis. They were collecting money for the elementary school and giving out terrible lollies (Kiwi lingo for candy) in return. Really, it just felt like more of a toll booth than anything else, and I doubt this rich community needed my poor student donation, but I ended up giving about $5 unintentionally. It’s easy to forget that coins can sometimes be worth dollars when you’re not used to it. After we paid the toll to Annie Oakley, we drove through the city centre, which was so tiny, we didn’t even bother stopping somewhere to eat, and opted to picnic on the beach with some crackers and olives that Shelby had packed earlier. The beach was quite nice, but with all the wind, it was a bit cold, so after our picnic, we headed off toward the hot water beach. PauaNUI!
On our way out, Sam had to take a wee, so we pulled over in front of some cows, then we were back on the road. Once we finally got out of Pauanui and drove about a kilometer or two (or maybe it was five, I’m still not used to kilometers), Sam realized that he didn’t have his phone. The only conclusion, it must have fell out of the van when he got out to pee, so we turned around and were headed back to - PauaNUI! But not before some jerk who didn’t have the right of way on a one-lane bridge came speeding at us forcing us to reverse. We returned to Pauanui, found not only a car, but also a tractor right where we pulled over earlier, waited awkwardly till they left hoping that neither of them ran over his phone and found the bugger unscathed. Thus, our return to Pauanui had come to an end… so we thought. Back on the road, Shelby realized that she was missing one of her favorite earrings from her mom, so we laughed at the thought that we might never leave Pauanui after all, but Shelby decided against going back, suggesting that if she was meant to find it, it would come to her. So we finally left Pauanui and kept driving up the Coromandel.
We were getting close! I could almost smell the sulfur in the air, not really, but we were getting there, and when we came up to the signs reading hot water beach and springs, etc. with arrows pointing in both directions, you can guess that we totally passed the turn, but it was a happy accident that took us about 100 meters to the hilltop and this nice little view =)
Road trip, woohoo! We stopped to take a couple of pictures and then turned around and finally made it. It was windy as (hehe) and cold, but we were determined to experience the hot water beach, even though we didn’t bring a spade. This didn’t stop us though, we brought along a chopping board (the only thing we could find that could serve as a digging tool) and thought that we could use it if we needed to, but hoped that someone would be nice enough to share their spade.
So here’s the deal with the hot water beach. There are hot springs that are right on the beach and you can dig a pool in the sand, close to where the tide comes in so that the hot water mixes with the cold water and you get a tolerable temperature to soak in. You need to bring a spade or a shovel to dig a hole. You may think you could dig a hole with your hands, but the water is literally boiling, and digging bare handed would not be the best idea. When we got to the area where the springs meet the sea, we were lucky enough that there were already some unoccupied pools that we could go in, score!
Once we had our fill of the hot water beach, we hit the road further up the peninsula to find a place to camp for the night. We drove through Hahei and Cooks Bay looking for a place that wasn't right in front of someones rich beach house, which is a pretty difficult task to achieve in the Coromandel. Finally we found a really nice spot at a park and called it a night. This was our view in the morning, not too shabby =)
After making some porridge for breakfast, we were off to drive the rest of the loop around the Coromandel and took a few stops along the way to take advantage of the views and snap some photos.
And this was our little home for the weekend =) Her name is Tui.
We stopped in the Coromandel city centre for lunch and picked up some awesome bread and cheese at the local market for dinner, then continued on to Kaiaua. Wanting something better for a camping spot for the night, we kept on driving until we got to Orere, and found the most beautiful spot right next to a creek and just had to jump in even though it was freeeeeeezing. The only down side, sooooo many sand flies!!!!! I hate them soooooo much, now I'm all chomped up =/
This morning we woke up at 2:30am to finish the drive up to Auckland and drop me off at the airport. It was a really great trip off the grid with good company =) Thanks again for picking me up Shelby <3
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