Mount Maunganui - Thames- Whitianga
Trip Start
Jan 22, 2006
1
90
156
Trip End
Aug 16, 2006
Whitianga,
New Zealand
Friday, April 21, 2006
We headed onto the bus for about a 90 minute journey to Thames, where we had a brief stop to stock up on food and to make sure that our daily pie ration was taken care of
01) Outlook above Cathedral Cove
. Then five of us left the main bus and got onto a smaller mini-bus, which would be our mode of transport for the rest of the day. We said fond farewells to the McCracken sisters and Canadian Jamie, as they were heading straight back to Auckland because they were due to fly out of New Zealand in the next couple of days.Today we had our first female driver of the trip so far, Lisa, so I made sure that my seatbelt was securely fastened as we all know what women drivers are like (joke!). She had the strongest New Zealand accent that we had heard on our trip so far, with every end of sentence creeping upwards in pitch, as well as plenty of "good on ya", "eh" and "sweet as" peppering her spiel. She also told long rambling stories that seemed to go on for about fifteen minutes , without any sort of ending or point to them.
I could see almost immediately why we were now in a much smaller bus, because the road got much narrower and steeper, as we drove around some very tight corners indeed. There was absolutely no way that the normal bus would have been able to get up these hills. We were travelling through an area of New Zealand called the Coromandel Peninsula, which is home to great beaches and native forest. Much of New Zealand used to be covered in Kauri trees, but sadly there are now very few of these magnificent trees left, as they were ruthlessly cutdown by British settlers who found their massive size absolutely perfect for shipbuilding
02) Further view from above Cathedral Cove
.We passed through the tiny towns of Tainia and Hakei, which Lisa explained were mainly full of the holiday homes of the rich and as a result were empty for much of the year. Just like Mount Maunganui yesterday, we saw plenty of evidence of new buildings being constructed and I found myself hoping that New Zealand wouldn't get overcrowded and overbuilt like some areas of England are.
Our next stop was at Cathedral Cove, which was a small secluded beach that had a huge rock that you could walk through onto another section of beach. The shape of the hole through the rock looked like the arched roofs that you get in some cathedrals and I assume this is how the bay was named. Although the walk to the beach had been described as "easy", Lynne and I knew by now that what the walk would really mean a hard walk, through a rain forest covered path, with plenty of slopes to climb and descend. Our prediction was proved to be correct and we had a tough 45 minute walk to get onto the beach itself. The bay was completely cut-off from anywhere else and it was beautiful, so it more than made up for our walking efforts, it was just a shame that we only got to spend 30 minutes on it before having to tackle the long walk back to the bus.
One wheeze back over the cliff-top later, we met back up with Lisa and we were driven to a beach that was about ten minutes away from Cathedral Cove. At low tide you could dig a hole in certain areas of the beach and this revealed hot, thermally heated water, which mixed with the colder sea water and provided an excellent spa time experience when climbed into. Sadly when we arrived at the beach it was at high tide, so we didn't get the chance to experience this for ourselves and had to console ourselves with a huge slice of lemon meringue pie
03) On the way down to Cathedral Cove
.We then only had a short drive to get to Whitianga, where Lynne indulged her creative tendencies and went off to create some jewelry at a bone carving class. Whilst I took the lazy option yet again and went to check into the hostel, fortunately this time the hostel owner helped me with all the bags I was carrying. Yet again we were in a building that was separate from the main hostel and only had to share the facilities with four other people. Lynne returned after about two hours with an excellent bone carved necklace and all of her fingers intact, which I thought was an achievement.
That evening we headed into town to have an explore around the centre, but I think we left it a bit late as virtually everywhere seemed to be shut. We found a fish and chip shop open, so we went in there to place an order. The place seemed busy and we soon found out why because I have never seen so much confusion over what orders had been placed and what the customers actually received. Still our order came out fine and it was very nostalgic to eat fish and chips that were wrapped in newspaper, just like they used to be when I was a lad.
We went back to our hostel to eat our meal and enjoy not being surrounded by lots of other backpackers.
