Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
It was raining again this morning. The last forecast I had read said that the rain would persist until Wednesday. We packed up our camp and left in the miserable weather. I had hoped to do some birdwatching in the area, but didn't really want to get soaked.
As we drove south along the Firth of Thames, we noticed that the clouds ended in a clear line to the south. As we drove further we noticed that the line was moving north.
We rounded the bottom of the firth and headed towards Thames. It was still quite rainy and miserable. There were many interesting sights on the way. I suggested that we stop and let the rain go past us, so we could continue our drive in the sunshine. So we stopped for a coffee in a small park. I walked over to the shore and took some photos. Our journey continued in fine weather. It was great. We stopped often to take more photos. As we approached Coromandel we noticed a group of large boats in a bay to our left. We turned up the road and drove to where the Auckland ferry lands. He spoke to the skipper on the last steel mussel boat in the area. All the new boats are aluminium. He also spoke to a couple who were fishing. They were from Tasmania, and were holidaying in the warmth(!) of NZ.
After Coromandel, we headed for the east coast of the peninsula. We stopped for lunch in a small park by a beach at Kuatunu. It was beautiful.
Around this time, our internet dongle which we had hired from the motorhome company stopped working. It was a bit frustrating, because I had been using it to help with driving directions and location, and now we would have to rely on the tourist maps, and the ones we had were not very detailed.
The road turned south and we drove through many coastal towns before heading inland to our overnight stop at Waihi. The scenery was fantastic but the roads on the Coromandel Peninsula could be challenging - narrow and twisty. The scenery was a distraction. Not just the incredible views, but there were things we had never seen before, such as a chicken with her chicks foraging on the side of the highway.
As we entered Waihi we noticed a large derelict building. We headed up the hill to have a look and found it was on the edge of a large open cut mine. The building had been the pump house for the original underground mine. It had actually been moved by the current mining company as a condition of their lease, so that it would not collapse into the open cut mine. We stayed at the Waihi Motor Camp. Brett was pleased that we were the only motorhome camped there. It was beautiful under the trees.
- comments