YHA Tidewater Tourist Park Coromandel

Stayed in a really scary old barn with LOADS of cows. Helen was too scared to go outside loo on her own at night lol! Met Sam who was the nicest chef ever and he worked down the road in the Cafe. Best full english breakfast Mark has ever eaten especially ...

I must begin again by doing a recap of past days.

I finished my three days off with one of much walking. First, I took a short jaunt up to Driving Creek Railway and Potteries to see what that was all about. It is the creation of a potter named Barry Brickle who built himself a narrow gauge railway up into the Coromandel Hills to be used to collect and transport clay for his pottery. Since then, it has become Coromandel Town's biggest tourist stop. I wandered around a bit ...

... say, though, that i was just introduced to poi, a hobby of Cora's. It consists of two balls on the end of two strings that you spin around and dance about like a fool - at least I do. Cora can do it with the poi on fire, which is pretty amazing, but I tend to avoid that since I end up pummeling myself while using the non-flaming ones. So this is how I would currently describe myself: a poi-spinning astrology buff who is surrounding by Germans but is far from Germany. Sounds normal, right?

... for dinner tonight and they were quite good if I do say so myself. It's nice to have an opportunity to experiment and cook what I want. We have free reign over most of the kitchen. We can use almost any of the food and utensils, and there is quite a lot to work with.

Although the work day seems like it may be a bit dull at times, I thenk the atmosphere, the food, and the people will make this a good place to be.

... way multiple times throughout the day.

I took him over to Stephanie's little hobbit house where she was still cleaning up and we got him some food and had some more good conversation. I think this will be a fun experience. It is an eclectice mix of people; a left-wing former Hippie Kiwi, a fast-talking, slow-thinking Welshman, two outdoorsy naive Americans, and yours truly. I wonder how I am being described right now in four other journals...

... going to the Waterfalls Dam and Taravaere Dam. On this walk we had everything...climbings, slippings, brooks crossings with jumping...very variedly and exciting and sometimes scarry. The hanging bridge was the best, only one person was allowed to cross it at the time. The walking took us 4 hours in total, we were exhausted and hungry. We got back to the car and drove to the hostel to have a nice hot short shower and went out for dinner to the Old Thames Restaurant, we needed a ...

... than the Canadians, British or Americans. 4. The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of fatty sausages and suffer fewer heart attacks than the Canadians, British or Americans. 5. The Ukrainians drink a lot of vodka, eat fatty cabbage rolls with pork and sour cream, and suffer fewer heart attacks than the Canadians, British or Americans. CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Apparently, what kills you is speaking English.

... but because we were so early there were like 2 other people there. Words can not explain how beautiful it was. Just awh inspiring, how magnificent and surreal this one place is.  http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/news/m ust-see-trailer-the-chronicles-of-narni a-prince-caspian.php (if you go to this website, click on the prince caspian trailer, when you see the kids leave the train station and on ...

... islands visible off the coast in a haze of purples and pinks as the sun set. We had planned the next day to visit Cathedral Cove, but the weather was horrible, pouring down, so we also cancelled our plans of visiting Hot Water Beach (you can dig in the sand and hot water rises up which you can get in and have your own hot water pool) due to the ****** weather. On to Rotorua!

... Pa lookout, before collapsing gratefully into our beds. We spent all of Saturday traveling along the west coast of the peninsula, so for Sunday we had to cross to the other side. We decided on using the 309 road, a very scenic, windy route that also happens to be the most direct path across the peninsula. We turned off when we found Waiau Watergardens (our 3rd of the trip, for those of you keeping track), a sculpture garden and playground. We had a ...