Coromandel Region - Mount Paku, Hot Water Beach & Cathedral Cove

First thing to note is never rely on the weather forecast out here… we hadn’t really planned anything this weekend as it showed Saturday with dark rain clouds…forget rain clouds, even the white fluffy sort didn’t make an appearance and it was in the 30’s today!

I love days like today, wake up, haven’t a clue what to do… pick a spot on the map and decision made. Today we chose the Coromandel area to the east of Auckland, the mission...

1. Climb Mount Paku in Tairua
2. Hot Watcher Beach
3. Visit Cathedral Cove

The drive over was a long 2 hour trip, very wibbly wobbly over the mountain ranges as we crossed over to Tairua. After a brief visit to the information centre and a quick energizing drinky and muffin we headed for our trek up Mount Paku. On reaching it at the base our first thought were OMG a fairly vertical climb but it really wasn’t as onerous at it seemed and 10 minutes of clambering up some steps we arrived at the top with the most spectacular views of the beach.

Mount Paku, Coromandel

You are warned in the brochures and again at the information centre that the undercurrents can be quite strong along this coast line and to be very carful when swimming. From our view you could see really clearly the rip tide along the beach, an up churned muddy rippling water being sucked out to sea clashing with the waves coming in towards the beach. Forever drilling it into the boys about the currents and it was great to show them so they could see it for themselves.

One of the things to mention is the deafening sound of the cicadas along the walk – they were on top form, I’d like to say singing their lungs, but their distinctive shrill noise is actually made by rubbing their wings together and tapping their legs against the bark… difficult to describe it but what I could liken to what I imagine a Tinitus suffer would experience.

Cicada

Turn up the volume....

Hot Water Beach

You can only visit the Hot Water Beach two hours each side of low tide. After purchasing our essential spade and a sneaky costume change in the car we make our way to the beach. Initially I’d envisaged a long stretch of beach where you can dig away to make your little spa pool of warm water to sit in, but oh how wrong was I! The actual warm area was teeny, not to mention rammed with people. The “warm” areas were already taken by people in-the-know (in front of the large main rock on the left as you come down the path for future knowledge). Nevertheless the boys still had a blast playing chicken with the waves, digging away and building their fort in the sand… with the tide on its way back in it really was mission impossible.

Hot Water Beach, Coromandel

Cathedral Cove

Then it was onto cathedral cove just a short drive up the coast and a 45 minute walk to get to the cave, which in essence is a huge caverness hole in the rock, and a stunning picturesque little spot.

Beautiful...

... here comes the wave...

... time for a quick exit!

We then embarked on our eventful trip home… my navigation map reading skills not one of my stronger attributes it has to be said, in fact pretty non existent! So Dan briefly mentioned he needs to pick up petrol enroute, no great rush, still got about 100K to go…so pick up the map…mmm… lets head along this road… looks like a short cut cutting through the mountains… 10 mins in and tarmac disappears and we hit dirt road (look at the key of the map… ohhh so that’s what it means when the road is a dotted line), slightly putting an end to any intention of saving time.

While Dan was having fun skidding all over the place, his fellow 3 passengers failed to share in his excitement however, and we eventually emerged on the other side 1 hour later, dusty and nerves slightly frayed, and petrol levels substantionally lower. Not a problem, we’ll just pick up petrol at the next town, looks like a main one on the map as it’s written in fairly large writing… so we slowly pass on through this ‘main’ town which consists of a few buildings out of a western movie in under a minute, not a petrol pump to be found… onto the next town, again nothing…next town the lonely petrol pump closed (it’s past 5pm). OK so it wasn’t looking good and we were both getting quite concerned at this stage, petrol light blinking away and nothing for the last 100km. The atmosphere in the car it could be said was slightly tense, no one uttering a word incase of jinxing the situation, complete stony silence and lots of silent praying going on.

Finally the sun was setting and we came to a town called Thames, and at last a petrol station glowing in the distance and our silence was broken with a unanimous “Thank God”… a massive relief!

Note to self – make sure to fill up when under half a tank as petrol pumps are pretty scarce once you leave Auckland.

To celebrate we quickly picked up a MacDonalds at the next door drive through and pulled up the car at the waters edge and enjoyed the most beautiful sunset – phew that was a close call!