Coromandel Peninsula - Filmlocations and paradise

Our destination was Thames on the Coromandel Peninsula. A bit outside of the city, we found a nice hostel. The first day in this region, we spent in a gold mining museum, where you could see the big machines and read about the gold mining history of the region. The rest of the day, we relaxed and read. I have to admit that sometimes, I just need a rest. Everyday sightseeing and discovering something new and if we don’t do that, we work, can get really exhausting. Then, you just want to do nothing for a day. I always had regrets, when doing nothing, because I always thought: “You are in such an amazing country, you have to use every minute of it”, but then I think it is also normal to get tired and that we need to be fit and able to get amazed about the things we see. Just stumbling from one into the next, will leave you indifferent after a time, so it is good to refill your energy and enthusiasm.

The next day, we drove to the tip of the peninsula to the town of Coromandel, walked through the streets and went hiking in the surrounding soft hills. Here, everything looks completely different: the sun was shining, the beaches are flat and golden, the water is clear. In the contrast to the rough western part of the country, Coromandel feels like paradise. Not, that it is better, but just completely the opposite. It is known for their mussels, the typical green lipped New Zealand mussels. They are similar to the common mussel, but green and bigger. You can see mussel plantations all over the coast. On our way to the new hostel in Hahei - which was funny because the owner was the brother of the owner of the hostel we stayed before - we passed and stopped at some beautiful beaches. Already that evening we planned our trip the next day, because for that our equipment and the tides were very important.

In the morning, we hiked to the famous Cathedral Cove, which is a hole in a rock, very beautiful at a very beautiful beach and had already been film location for Narnia: Prince Caspian. On our way there, we passed some wonderful bays as the Gemstone Bay and the Stingray Bay. It was an amazingly wonderful walking way. Arriving at the Cathedral Cove, we took the obligatory pictures and honestly at first I was a bit disappointed as it didn’t look like I had expected. But then, I noticed that you just have to find the right perspective and then it looks just like in the film. This is probably, because in the film it looks like a cave, but actually it is a tunnel. The low tide is important, because at high tide, you can only cross the cove by a boat or kayak, which we didn’t bring. On the other side of the cove, we sun bathed for about half an hour until an ugly wind came up and it got very uncomfortable. Also, the sun disappeared and didn’t come back all day long.

So, we returned to our home and in the afternoon at a higher tide, headed to the Hot Water Beach, equipped with shovels. At the beach are two hot springs and if you find the right spot to dig a hole in the beach, you can create your own hot water pool. After some failures, we found a good place and sat into the warm water. The sky was still grey and the wind cold, so the warm bath was just the perfect thing to do. The water can be up to 50° Celsius hot and it was pretty funny, because you always notice the changing of the temperatures, when someone jumped out of his pool screaming. At some places, you could see steam and the boiling hot water. The only strange thing was some tiny, wobbly things in the water, which seemed to be, actually I don’t know… But after having read the Swarm only a short time ago, I was a bit worried about these little things, taking over firstly us and then the whole world.

The next day we visited the big gold mine in Waihi, which had already been mentioned in the museum. Here, you could still see the people working and the funny thing is that in the huge mine the machines look so tiny, but when they suddenly come closer, you notice how big they really are. The gold mining made the region rich, but nowadays people don’t want the mine anymore and want to transform it into a lake. I can definitely understand that. Apparently, it doesn’t bring much profit anymore and it is definitely completely ugly. After walking the walking track of the gold mine with interesting explanations on the way, it started to rain heavily and we went home to get rid of our wet clothes. Obviously, we had been walking only in t-shirts and without rain clothes. We cooked something warm to eat and were really looking forward to get to the warm Bay of Plenty – already the name sounds very promising- and two woofing places.

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