Clan Haley

Coromandel

After some dry clothes we got on the road and headed north towards the Coromandel Penninsula. We stopped in a little beach town called Whiritoa in an attempt to see some caves. Unfortunately the tide was in making the walk off the cards. We did however see some Northern New Zealand Dottrel pottering about the beach. These birds have two subspecies (a north island and a south island). The south island subspecies is critically endangered with only about 100 birds that live on Stewart Island. The north island sub species was also endangered, but is recovering well with somewhere around 2500 birds at the last count. Its always cool to hear about positive conservation stories and I have my fingers crossed for the south island birds. After that we carried on up the coast with a brief stop in Whangamata for a playground that was above my climbing comfort zone and to stock up on some food for the next few days. Our final stop was our accomodation in Tairua. It was New Years Eve, so some of you might expect us to stay up late and watch the local fireworks. Recently our NYE vibes have involved some nice food, and bed at the normal time. There is nothing like waking up to a new year well rested and ready to go. How boring, I know.

Our plan on the 1st was the head up the coast to Hahei to visit Cathedral Cove. We knew this was a popular spot so we planned to get there early before the crowds. We parked on the outskirts of town and caught the local bus to the start of the walk. The walk was lovely with the path winding its way up and down along the coast. After about 30 minutes we arrived at Cathedral Cove. It was pretty special with lots of boats sailing past and people enjoying the beach. James and I went for a swim which he loved, but it mostly involed him grabbing onto my chest hair as he tried to avoid being splashed by the waves. Around lunchtime we packed up and headed back to town for some food at a lovely little cafe. James fell asleep in the car ride back to town, so Laura and I stopped for some ice cream. We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling at our accomodation.

On the 2nd we headed to Paunaui which is just across the bay from Tairua, but involves a 30 minute drive. We parked up and started a walk up towards the summit of Mount Paunaui. It was pretty steep and hot. Laura wasn't feeling great so turned back, but James and I carried on to the summit. James did amazing and managed to make it most of the way up and down on his own. The view over the bay was so good. Once I have some photos I'll post them. We again returned back to Tairua but got caught up in some terrible traffic due to some road works. We had a brief play on the beach before heading up the summit of Mount Paku. We were staying a few hundred meters from the summit so we felt we needed to head up.

Today we packed the car and headed west with our ultimate aim of making it to Matamata for our tour of Hobbiton on the 4th. On the way we stopped at Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre. They had a few hides setup which gave fantastic views across some salt flats. Unfortunately we didn't time it well with the tides, but we did see quite a few waders. We stopped in Paeroa for some lunch. Paeroa is the home of another water spring that is famous due to a local soft drink L&P (Lemon and Paeroa). The slightly fizzy water is due to the minerals in the water. Our next stop was Karangahake Gorge. This was the home of a massive gold and silver mine with huge amounts of infrastructure being built betweeen 1880s and 1950s. We went on the "window walk" which follows an old rail line through the gorge with several tunnels through rock with windows looking out on the river bellow.

Tomorrow we head to middle earth!