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At last, our time in Auckland has come to an end, and we can
get on with touring the rest of New Zealand.
We caught our Stray bus out of Auckland at the backpackers we had made
our home for our first few weeks. The
vibrant orange bus listed a little to the left, and had a bad
transmission. Only after I had snubbed
it for being a noisy POS did I spot the moniker it had been given written in
cursive on the passenger door- Lauren.
Our first stop was Thames, an old gold mining town at the
base of the Coromandel Peninsula. The
town itself was not much of a gem, the surrounding waters were distinctly
brown, the buildings were a bit rustic, and perched atop a hill was a rather phallic
monument to WWII. However, the town of
Thames is now better served as the gateway to the Coromandel, and it was for
that purpose that we hopped off the bus to explore. We were headed into the Coromandel Forest
Park for some hiking, but had absolutely no idea how we were going to get there. Nevertheless, the next morning we began
walking out of town and into the valley, hoping against all hope to hitch a
ride to the trailhead. The first car we
flagged pulled over. We had heard that
hitching in New Zealand was common and easy, but neither of us was expecting
such good fortune. We were picked up by
an older couple who offered to take us about halfway up the road, and found
ourselves on a detour to a feijoa farm, mostly on the grounds that we’d never
seen nor heard of a feijoa, where we were handed over to an old farmer with few
remaining teeth who drove out of his way to take us to the trailhead.
The hike took us up to the pinnacles and a view over most of
the peninsula. The final climb was a
steep staircase and metal footholds drilled into the rock. No sooner had we reached the summit, panting
and sitting down to rest, that a group of schoolchildren who had given us a
generous lead bounded to the top. I
stared at them, speechless. “What, did
you run?” we asked “Yeah,” one of the girls answered nonchalantly. Their leader said their group had divided
into three based on fitness levels. “Are
you the most in shape group, then?” we asked.
“No,” she said, “we’re the middle group.” After we had all been thoroughly put to shame,
we trudged down the mountain, the girls well out of sight.
Our next stop was Hahei, on the other side of the peninsula.
We arrived in the afternoon amid ominous
looking weather and began the obligatory walk to Hahei’s claim to fame,
Cathedral Cove. We took our time on the
walk, stopping to explore the nearby Stingray Bay and take in the beautiful,
albeit cloudy, beaches, before arriving at the cove itself. Maybe it was rather late in the afternoon,
but the cove was not nearly as crowded as I had expected, and we spent a good
deal of time there, marveling at the splendor of it. After noticing a large pile of rocks heaped on
the sand, apparently having recently fallen from the roof of the archway, we
took our leave and headed back along the trail.
The next day was sunny and warm and I was grateful for
having decided to stay an extra day in Hahei, despite the disagreeable weather
when we first arrived. We spent the day
at Hot Water Beach, a thermal phenomenon only accessible at low tide. While we were walking along the road to the
beach, a truck pulled over and offered us a lift. (Apparently hitchhiking in New Zealand is so
easy that you don’t even need to stick your thumb out.) Feeling that we had made it to the beach in
good time, we were surprised when the shop had already rented out their supply
of spades. The main feature of Hot Water
Beach, for which the beach gets its name, is a stretch of beach about forty
yards long where you can dig a pool in the sand and tap into a supply of hot
water underneath. Lined up along the
beach were eight-man sand-carved hot tubs, and, clearly, the shop’s supply of
shovels. Empty handed, we headed down to
the beach prepared to hand dig a hole, but realized that this was both far more
difficult than it seemed and that we had evidently arrived too late and all the
good hot water had been claimed. After
digging several holes that yielded no hot water, I found my own sweet spot,
unfortunately situated just at the shoreline.
No sooner had I started digging than my hole was washed away, so
instead, I merely sat on the sand. This
had the effect of my buttocks being very toasty while the rest of my body was
occasionally doused with cold sea water.
Unfortunately, as the day ended and we headed back into town (getting a
lift again without raising a finger), I noticed that I had incurred the wrath
of the sun with a wicked sunburn the likes of which I haven’t seen in
years. In my joy at seeing the sun I had
forgotten that while New Zealand’s weather may be temperate, the country is
situated just beneath the hole in the ozone.
