On the Coromandel Peninsula

The Coromandel Peninsula - located just southeast of Auckland - is like a miniature Northland. Here too there are thousands of bays and beaches, rainforests and kauri trees, gravel roads, pohutukawa trees, and a sparse population... but everything is close together, the north-south span (measured from the Thames - Coromandel Town route) is only 55km... the peninsula goes a little further, but the roads there cannot be driven with rental cars...

First of all, we stayed 2 nights on the west side of the Coromandel Peninsula, at the Firth of Thames. The female M had chosen a hike that we did not know yet, which starts here. This hike provided us with (a) some beautiful views and (b) another day in the category of 'great hiking day', although sun and fewer low-hanging clouds could have increased the fun even more.

To get from one (in our case the west) to the other (here: east) side, there are actually 4 options. Two of them were closed due to storm damage. However, you need an odd number for a side change, but of course you want to have driven all the roads that are already sparsely available, so we had to drive one of the remaining routes twice.

On the east side of the Coromandel Peninsula is one of our absolute favorite places in New Zealand - Cathedral Cove. Unfortunately, its access from the land was blocked due to storm damage and access from the water was prohibited due to various dangers on the beach. So that we wouldn't be too sad that we definitely couldn't get there this time, it rained the whole time... Another standard highlight was also inaccessible due to a destroyed road: the Tapu<->Coroglen gravel road with the Square Kauri.

But at least one treat was accessible: Hot Water Beach. Some hot springs reach the surface here - at low tide - in this case in a small area of ​​a sandy beach, where large crowds of tourists build sand bathtubs and sit (or lie) in them, until the tide comes and washes everything away again. Since we know exactly where to dig, we are always there, and this time too a shovel is already ready for us in our accommodation. However, there is not only the tide factor, but also the wind factor, and since we have had strong east winds for some time, the water level was higher than usual, and when we arrived shortly after low tide, the fun was almost over. But since it was also raining a bit and rather cool, we wanted to use the 'only feet' variation anyway, and it was enough for that...