Thames - Whitianga
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
1
15
32
Trip End
Dec 06, 2007
Whitianga,
New Zealand
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Anyway, we hightailed it out of there and went to spend a short time at the beach at Tapu, before heading into the earth worshipping Rapaura Water Gardens for a stroll around their well manicured native garden and 15 minute walk to the Seven Stairways to Heaven (read pretty water cascade/fall). It was quite lovely, as far as gardens go, but there were strong objections to paying $24 without warning that you're going to have to endure an hour of earth worship. Pretty gardens: ugly ideology.
From the idolaters, we continued on to Coromandel town. The scenery around towards Coromandel is quite spectacular, and there are numerous photo-worthy moments, but not too many opportunities to stop a giant beast of a car/hotel
Earth worship garden
. Once in Coromandel town we stopped in for some Umu Pizza. Quite tasty and I still don't know what their ideology is. Yay!After a walk down the main street of Coromandel town, we headed over the hill (and what a hill) to the Stoney Creek Winery, where the wine was made from fruit, and particularly Feijoa. Very strange (all fruit wineries are) But the Feijoa was the best one from the bunch. Mckayla got to practice her Thai skills, as the cafe host was Thai and had a three year old. Mckayla has been practicing 'kawp khun kaa' and was able to demonstrate her fluency... with prompting.
It was just a short detour to Whangapora, where there was a lovely beach with sand just calling out to be played with or laid upon.
After lazing on the sand for five minutes, we continued on to Whitianga, where the biggest excitement occurred when the siren sounded the alert calling all volunteers to the fire station. After seeing many speed towards the station, we began to suspect this was an excuse to hoon around on a Sunday night. This was confirmed when the fire truck left and volunteers continued to flood in. When we found a hotel for dinner (fantastic seafood at pub prices) the barman confirmed that not everyone in town is a member of the fire brigade, but everyone thinks they are, and some people enjoy following the fire truck around. When we saw the vibrancy of the town at 7pm on a Sunday night, we could well understand why.
