Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Noy's 4th Walkabout
Tuesday started rainy again but soon cleared to being just overcast and we started up the east side of the Coromandel Peninsula. We called in at Hot Water Beach (where you can rent a spade and dig a whole (on the beach), sit in it and receive a hot water surprise from underneath you. Unfortunately we arrived at HIGH tide, and you can only do it 1 hour either side of LOW tide! Then we went on to the start of the walk to Cathedral Cove but did not try the whole climb (down and back was a LONG way!), choosing instead to go to the first (Gemstone) Bay. To cross the Coromandel means constantly climbing and going down the other side of ridges formed by volcano lave 8.5 million years ago, so the old bus worked very hard! We arrived at Coromandel Town on the North West edge of the peninsula as it was going dusk but found our campsite (on a bay north of the town) and then ate well at the best restaurant in town - the lamb was EXCELLENT!
The sound of rain on the roof of the van is always very loud - and so it was on Wednesday morning! But there were breaks on and off and we went to see the most eccentric narrow gauge railway of all time, surely bar none! Built over 25 year by a potter (yes, you read correctly!) called Barry Bricknell who is passionate about art, railways and conservation and who bought a side of a mountain to replant in native trees (cleared by an ignorant farmer 100 years ago) and from which to mine clay for his pots (sorry - "works of art"!). He started the railway to bring back clay to his workshop but his passion for building the line got the better of him - FIVE times he has said "that's the end of the line" (he's now 70 years old) but every time the urge to build more track and take the railway higher up the mountain bets the better of him. Today they have a problem; a tree fell across the line yesterday and cracked two rails. Worse still, the owner felled the tree and it fell the wrong way! So we have a picture of him, in the workshop, welding the new rail into shape for the team to take on a truck up the mountain before we can travel. The journey eventually started 90 minutes late but we hope that you can see from the photos that (even in the pouring rain - AGAIN!) the train is a masterpiece (Richard's view Jill's not so sure!) and exhilarating to ride on. The views from Barry's "Eyefull Tower" (brilliant play on words and better views than from its namesake!) would be quite stunning if the usual rain storm was not in progress! We left later than planned so our return from "The Coromandel" to real life was a bit hasty and a jolt back to the year 2006 too. We drove into Auckland expecting the worst - and got it! Traffic jams and worst still the first "bum steer" since landing in New Zealand! The site we were aiming for (at Orewa, north of Auckland) was closed. The owner sold up for a cool $35 million and closed the site on 1st May! So we had to drive BACK 30 kilometres to a site on the north edge of the city - one black mark for Top 10 Campsites! In the evening Richard made contact with his old work colleague of 15 years, Merv Reeves and it's hoped to meet up with him and wife Jennifer before we leave next week.
This may be last postcard till we get back from the North (where we hope it'll be warmer, not colder!) and there may only be one more before we leave New Zealand - doesn't time fly when you're having fun?! For those concerned about our return to the UK, assuming we DO return on 21st July, then next Sunday represents the halfway marker in our trip, so after that we'll be closer to you every day! Lots of love from Jill & Richard, Mum & Dad, Grandma and Granddad! xx xx xx
- comments