Coromandel Peninsula
Trip Start
Dec 07, 2006
1
21
25
Trip End
Jan 12, 2007
Whitianga, New Zealand
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Over to Matamata next, for a tour of the Hobbiton film set. Excellent tour, and we got lucky with times. Informative guides put flesh on it to make it a good tour - without their commentary it may have been a bit weak. Great photo opportunities too.
Next was the Coromandel Peninsula. First we stopped off at Thames, the "gateway" town. That didn't take long, and we continued on to Whitianga and our B&B. Not much to do in Coromandel, compared to some of the other places we'd been, and lots of bad windey roads, but Stewart & Gillian had recommended two highlights - Driving Creek Railway and Hot Water Beach.
Driving Creek Railway is great - a narrow gauge railway build by a local nutter, potter and sculptor. Fantastic little place, it winds up through lush forest on a short route with lots of reverses, bizarre features and sculptures, and great viewpoints over the peninsula, finally culminating in the Eyefull Tower viewpoint. The driver provides commentary too: "Anyone here from Auckland? Then welcome to New Zealand!" was a joke on the big city pace of life there. Doubly funny to us, since we see Auckland as a laid-back small place.
Our visit to Hot Water Beach was unfortunately at a weekend and with tide times that made it popular - 5pm low tide so at the ideal build-your-own-hot-tub time of 3.30pm it was absolutely mobbed. Two hot springs emerge at hot spots on the beach which are exposed near to low tide, so all the action is confined to these two points. Oh well.
Dinner options in and around Whitianga were quite scarce. One night we ended up at the chippy, the second night we searched harder and found a pizzeria which did the job nicely. All in all, Coromandel wasn't a high point on the trip - we'd seen sunshine on the coast at Bay of Islands and that had a bit more to see and do.
