16-21 days - A varied week

After arriving at the wonderful Muriwai Beach, we decided to slow down our pace and enjoy this beautiful place longer than planned. We start Thursday morning with a run on the beach to stay in shape. After a well-deserved and rare 'hot shower', we stroll along the coast and observe thousands of gannets nesting.

200 km later, we find ourselves in the middle of the Coromandel Peninsula in Tapu, where we set up our camp just in time for an Italian dinner. The funny guy from the campsite welcomes us warmly, but with a subtle flirtatious touch ;).

The next morning, we switch to the east coast of the peninsula, where we visit tourist hotspots. At the 'hot water beach', one wonders where these famous hot springs are located, but the about 500 people squeezed together in sand holes quickly reveal the answer. Without a shovel, we sit in a hole already dug by other tourists and enjoy the approximately 40° hot seawater. To cool off, we then go to the slightly cooler Pacific, where it's still pleasant. So we swim in the sea for the first time on our journey :). We camp afterwards on a beautifully maintained 'campsite' at Cooks Beach, where we are immediately approached by our fellow countryman, 'die steirische Eiche'.

As it is already raining on Saturday morning and the weather forecast doesn't hold anything better for us, we drive directly to Matamata, where one of the highlights awaits half of us - Hobbiton! Of course, we pay the around 50€ for the two-hour tour to the Shire, and so we march towards Frodo, Sam, and Bilbo, where I learn some interesting details about the film production.

On Sunday, we drive to Mount Maunganui, where we hike up the eponymous 'mountain' (similar to the Schloßberg) and enjoy a great view.

In the late afternoon, we travel to the WWOOFing station organized a few days earlier, where we join for freshly caught fish and discuss the next three working days with our hosts (we try to understand Graeme and Tracey with their New Zealand English ;).

As ordered for the first day of work, the sun returns on time with 27°C and supports us in trimming, mulching, weeding, hedge trimming, window cleaning, etc. There is a lot to do. Among them are tasks that are not for the faint-hearted (2 cm black, fat spiders on the windows - a challenge for Karin - but she managed it!)

As the summer is about to begin here, there are also many pollen flying around - Allergy 2.0 programmed. Whether it's the house dust or the pollen that causes us to need countless tissues - we don't know! Since we are used to working quickly in Austria, we complete our tasks faster than our hosts had expected. So we will already leave Pukehina on Wednesday afternoon and head towards Rotorua, a tourist hotspot.

We hope you are braving the cold weather and the beginning of winter back home! Maybe some beautiful sunny photos of us will help you. We look forward to your feedback and comments! :)

Best regards!