Coromandel Peninsula - Pauanui

Saturday 11 March 2017 - Moving Day

With only two weeks left and two more areas to visit on this trip we travel for about one and a half hours north today to the seaside town of Pauanui. The showers and rain that has been hampering us while at Katikati reached their peak last night causing widespread flooding, evacuations and road closures in the region, everything we don't want for today's travels.

An example of the the road damage

We had a fair bit of time up our sleeves between check-out and check-in so we chose the long way to our new place going via Thames for lunch. This was a very fortunate choice as the more direct route was badly damaged from the rains.

The Nose is back!

As it was we had to negotiate 100's of landslips either partly over the road or directing floodwaters over it. Numerous trees were down, debris was scattered everywhere and in one place whole trees were piled up either side of the road. All this was further enhanced by steep and constant windy roads and rain sometimes heavy. 

We safely arrived at our new accommodation built high up on the side of a steep hill. At the end of a long and taxing days drive what better way to end it with a driveway so steep it was covered in tyre skid marks from previous visitors trying to get up. On top of that, where we were to park the car is actually on a Lazy-Susan turntable. Neither of us had ever experienced one of these before so getting the car off the super steep driveway onto a spinning turntable (car is front wheel drive) was a bit of an experience.  The turntable was fantastic though as we could lightly push the car to turn it around facing back down the steep hill.

Julie sort of pointing to our place - second from the left with the dormer windows

Car turnaround area

A break in the now receding showers allowed us to open up the new place - a two storey chalet style design with two double bedrooms and bathroom upstairs and a third room downstairs with the living area. Julie volunteered to stay in the house and unpack things as I brought them up from the car. Continuing the super-steep theme of the house block, the car located on the spinning thing is two storeys below the first level of the two storey house and the internal stairs if any steeper would be called a ladder. The first thing I did was put a defibrillator half way up the stairs then I commenced the unloading process. Once that was done Julie suggested we go for a quick walk to get some exercise for the day as we hadn't done much!

The weather breaking

With a week here we, as we always do, planned our intended activities around the weather, and given the recent weather we didn't know whether roads would be open. Anyway late in the afternoon a dove flew past with a willow branch in its beak and we emerged from the house onto the verandah like two of Noah's animals to watch the sun break through never to be hidden by clouds again for the week we were here.

The views from this place are just spectacular with many an hour spent overlooking the sleepy and very wealthy seaside town of Pauanui, its beautiful beach and even better surf break.  Many of the houses seem to be weekenders/holiday houses so it's very quiet.  

View from our  accommodation

Quiet it may be however on our first night, we were woken at 3.00 am by blaring sirens. Thinking it could be a Tsunami alarm we got up, looked out the windows, saw that the surf was normal and no-one below us seemed concerned so thought we were safe.  After a while the alarm stopped so we presume it was the typical small village call-out to volunteer emergency service workers to meet and go sort out an emergency - probably a blocked road as there is only one road into Pauanui so a tree over the road would require urgent attention.

Local beach walk Pauanui

On the Sunday we did the typical lazy Sunday thing by just chilling out, not going out and recharging the batteries while the work crews were busy clearing the roads for us. Monday we did the local beach walk in the morning and were astounded, but not surprised, by  the amount of debris washed up on the beach. Next we headed south to Waihi along the scenic road we would have taken if we were coming a more direct route to our place. It was obvious by sheer chance that our decision to go the long way via Thames was a good one as the road was previously cut by large landslips. Work crews had cleared the road and were still working on getting things back to normal.

Typical road damage

A Wharekawa Harbour walk to a deserted beach through pine forests and bird reserve was really good.

Dreaming of a surf ski

Again unbelievable surf breaks were untouched, oh how I would have liked to have my surf ski with me. Morning tea and lunch filled in the day before returning home to our front yard roundabout.

Next day was a planned big day as we headed west back to Thames then followed the winding road that hugs the coast north through Coromandel Town, for a really nice vegetarian lunch at an out of the way mud brick building, to near, but not quite, the top of Coromandel Peninsula. Crossing back over the range we hit the east coast of the peninsula to do a lovely beach walk at Whangapoua. Volcanic outcrops dotted the picturesque bay as we walked the nice beach - just idyllic.

West Coromandel Peninsula road

Whangapoua Beach

Arriving back home after a long drive and a great day, our afternoon on the verandah was enhanced even further by our own private airshow. In the middle of Pauanui is a grass airstrip. Houses are built either side of it and some houses even have a garage for their planes. For whatever reason two WWII planes took off side by side and proceeded to put on a full blown airshow lasting well over half an hour. They were absolutely perfectly in sync in executing their complex maneuvers as they flew around us overhead with frequent co-ordinated smoke trails. Great day.

Part of our private air show

Cathedral Cove

Wednesday 15 March:  Just to the north of us is Cathedral Cove located in a white limestone region of the Coromandel Peninsula and just to the south of that is Hot Water Beach. This was our entertainment for today. We arrived relatively early after 1.5 hours drive to the carpark at the start of the walk to Cathedral Cove. Every camper-van that ever there was is here because today's the day the overseas tourists go to Cathedral Cove. The carpark is pretty small and the demand is very big, so-much-so a parking/arguer/fighter/arm-waving attendant is employed full time to control the parking. When full the nearest carpark is over a kilometre back down the hill in someone's front yard who enterprisingly charges $10 for the privilege. We got the third last available free carpark!

Start of walk

The 40 minute walk each way was probably worth it provided you don't have to pay $10 for parking. The rock formation is fairly impressive but we don't think the hype about the place, nor the crowds, is justified. We were entertained by a couple of young German tourists that wanted to go the deserted beach out the back of the cave. The beach was deserted because the tide was in. So the girl stripped down to her bikini and sun top with all her clothes, mobile phone etc rolled up in her arms. The boyfriend did the same. The waves were hitting the sidewall of the back of the cave so when there was a short lull the plan was to dash through the thigh deep water. The girl took off in a sprint for some reason and in front of everyone quickly face planted into the ocean drowning all her previously dry clothes etc. The boyfriend observing this took a more sedate walk but up against the wall. A wave came and hit the wall and drenched him completely and all his belongings. All very funny and entertaining - for us at least. We hoped the deserted beach was big enough to hang out all their wet clothing.

Silhouette of us in Cathedral Cove - deserted beach on left

The Cathedral Cove beach is about 100 metres long. Now if you are not up to walking the very good sometimes a bit steep bitumen track and climbing the 100's of stairs down (and then of course back up) to the beach, you can kayak here - about 40+ double kayaks arrived while we were there. If walking or kayaking is not your style a water taxi will regularly drop you and a boat load of other people off. All this on a little tiny beach to see a cave.   

We drove to Hot Water Beach, tide was in so not worth stopping and the campervanning tourists were already starting to amass, lunch was calling and we headed off to lunch at a local brewery.  

Next day Otama Beach was calling. Even further north than Cathedral Cove this pretty seaside village, with about six houses nestled into the side of a headland, has a beautiful deserted beach. So with no guilt whatsoever we tracked our footprints near the full length of it. The day was just beautiful.

We tracked down the start of a couple of possible walks but looking at them they didn't appeal so after visiting Whangerai for seafood lunch we headed home once again.

Our last day in Pauanui was always planned to be a local one. At the far end of the beach from where we are staying is Paaku Peak, or as we call it Cat's Head Peak because that is what it looks like. We took a drive up this extinct volcano as high as we could go. The rest of the journey to the top is on foot up a very steep formed track then boulder climb. The 360 degree views from the top were worth all the huffing and puffing. There at the end of the beach was our place - what a surprise. We poked around another beach a little further north at Tairua and easily filled in our day. Returning home for the last time we made ready for moving day tomorrow.

View from Paaku Peak, Tairua out to the ocean and hinterland, Tairua Harbour and Pauanui

Our accommodation and this lovely part of New Zealand were just fantastic. The weather had a lot to do with it but we both agree it is definitely worth coming to and spending at least a week on the Coromandel Peninsula.

So that ends another seven days in New Zealand.

Amusing sign in restaurant toilet

I will end it here as drinks on the verandah are calling.

JeffnJulie - the Grey Gonads in New Zealand.