Back to Auckland and then to the Coromandels!

Trip Start Mar 13, 2008
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Trip End Sep 12, 2008


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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

We needed to get our WOF (Warrant of Fitness, NZ's version of an auto inspection) for Pipo the Van, so we went back to Auckland.  Probably a mistake, since we later found out that while there are more places offering WOFs in Auckland, they tend to be stricter than in the rural areas.  Soooo... we failed our WOF and needed some fairly major work done.  We found a mechanic that we thought we could trust; he sent us off, telling us to go and enjoy the Coromandel and that our car was structurally sound enough for us to travel with it some more (he was too busy to work on it immediately, so we went off for a week to see the Coromandel Peninsular and maybe Rotorua.) 
 
The Coromandel was as lovely as I remembered it, if a bit more built up.  But not everything is built up - the 'highway' there is still a windy, torturous two-lane wonder that wends its way around the seashore, hugging it tightly railway 1
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 .  Sometimes the two lanes even narrow down to one and a half, making two way traffic challenging.  And this is New Zealand - they don't bother much with guardrails here!  It was a long, slow ride, and both Girija and Lalitha were a little queasy by the end of it - Girija even threw up a little, something highly unusual for her as she's typically a great, sturdy little traveller.  So we stopped for a while in a roadside pull-over by the sea.  Tried to find mussels but they were all mostly too small to be worth it - it's easier to buy 'em from the market (and at $2.25 a kilo ($1.80 U.S.) it's not hard on the wallet either!   But I digress... eventually we arrived in Coromandel Town and pulled into a campground there (free camping is not allowed on the Coromandel Peninsular).  But that was all right; Girija had a blast on their trampoline (as you can see!).  We heard about the Coromandel's smoked mussels and had to try them; I was a bit dubious of them at first, but now... O, how I wish I could hand them to you for you to try; they are extraordinarily delicious!
 
The next day we took Girija for a ride on the Driving Creek Railway, a tiny little railroad built by an eccentric potter who wanted an easy way to get his clay down from the hills.  Now he makes more money shuttling tourists up and down, and has a built-in draw to get people to look at his pottery - true Kiwi ingenuity!  That was a lot of fun for all of us, as we got to see lots of native plants and beautiful vistas, and Girija got her first ride on an open-air, narrow gauge train.  And yes, the pottery was beautiful, too!
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