From Auckland, we drove to the Coromandel Peninsula and first traveled along the west coast to Thames. This small town is one of the larger ones on the peninsula and was an important city during the gold rush.
There isn't much left to see today. There are still some beautiful buildings, but overall we didn't find the place very interesting. We took a historical walk, during which we climbed a hill next to the town to see a memorial for the fallen soldiers of World War I. It wasn't very impressive, but since the climb was exhausting in the humid weather, we still took a photo of it. In the town, we also noticed tents in private gardens, which we have seen quite frequently in New Zealand. We still wonder if New Zealanders camp in their own gardens during the summer... However, we did see a tent that was converted into a carport. It's amazing what you can use tents for. Since it was still early and Thames didn't really impress us, we continued driving north. Coromandel wasn't far away, but the time indicated by our GPS was quite long. On the way, we realized why: The winding road meandered between the coast and the mountains. The scenery was beautiful, but we couldn't drive too fast with our motorhome. Finally, we reached higher ground with some nice views before arriving in Coromandel. In this little town, there were some beautiful buildings that we explored with a brochure from the tourist information center. Coromandel also grew due to the mining of gold and the presence of miners here. Today, it is a very touristy town, especially in the summer. Many residents from Auckland drive to the Coromandel Peninsula during the summer holidays. However, we still found a centrally located free parking space where we could spend the night. The next morning, we went to the Driving Creek Railway, a 2.6 km private railway. It was built by the late Barry Brickel to supply his high-altitude pottery workshop. Then, he must have discovered that transporting tourists to the mountain can be more profitable than running a pottery workshop. So today, it is a popular attraction in Coromandel. The narrow tracks led up through forests that were home to ferns and kauri trees, among others. At some points, we had to change direction to go up the mountain (instead of a curve, there was only one track and a turnout).Once we reached the top, we could look into the valley from a viewing tower before the ride back down. On the way back, we were stuck in traffic in Coromandel for quite some time because the "Keltic Fair," the major summer festival of Coromandel as we later read, was taking place. Unfortunately, this led to a complete overload of Coromandel's infrastructure consisting of two main roads, so it took us about half an hour for the short distance...Then we drove eastward on the highway to the eastern part of the Coromandel Peninsula. The road ran along the coast and through the mountains, giving us beautiful views of the coast along the way.
