Coromandel

Ok so its about time for a new post...its been so long since the Coromandel I don't even remember everything...

So over a month ago Nate, our roommate Tanja, her co-worker Dacs, and I decided to rent a car and drive about two and a half hours out to the Coromandel. We hummed n hawed over which rental car company to go with, left it to the last minute and almost didn't go at all. So who should save the day at the very last minute...thats right, me! I called around, wasted all my vodaphone minutes, had to figure out how to use the house phone (yeah thats right its not so simple as in canada, there are no dial tones, and it rings funny, plus you can only dial local numbers in auckland.) Luckily the last call I make has a car and for cheap too! Only $39 a day!

So early Saturday morning, Nate, Tanja and I caught the bus and made our way to the rental car place. It was one of the worst bus rides of my life! The night before was Tanja's birthday and we all went out and partied even though we knew we had to be up the next morning. I nearly yacked a couple times, but managed to keep it down...puking on the bus in front of all those people would not have been cool and Nate and Tanja would never have let me live it down. Finaly we get to our stop after what seems like eons and eons. Dacs only lives a block away from the rental place so met us there.

We waited some more at the rental place for them to get all the info they needed and then bring the car around. Tanja decides at this point she will drive first...scary! As we are pulling out onto the busy street the car stalls. She gets it going again and drives out into the middle...the street is very busy and she has to wait...well there is a huge semi coming strait for us! Nate and Dacs are turning white in the backseat and praying we dont get hit...at the very last second Tanja lays on the gas, cutting off another car, but saving us from imminent danger and possible death. We get onto the highway where we reach excessive amounts of speed, Tanja didn't know the speed limit and is used to unlimited speeds (however fast your car can go) in Germany! We quickly inform her its only 100! and to slow down. Lol!

The car ride after this point gets much better...for a while. We dont have cruise so after about an hour Tanja hands over to Nate. From here the highway turns into a windy hilly road that makes all our stomachs turn all over again! Luckily I brought my gravol, and once again save the day :).

Finaly we make it to our first stop...hot water beach. We didnt bring any shovels and weren't sure where to dig so we just walked down the beach and checked it out. This is one of the four most dangerous places in NZ in terms of drowning numbers, although this may be because of the huge number of tourists that flock here. Most people just come to dig holes into the sand and burn their bums. The tide also happened to be in when we arrived, and it was cold and rainy so we decided that we would come back another day.

Our next stop was Cathedral Cove. Cathedral cove (which apparently appears in the second Narnia film), is famous for its gigantic limestone arch and natural waterfall shower. It was so beautiful even in the drizzle! We had to walk 35 mins on a muddy trail but the views we saw were spectacular! Nate and I were both in flip flops and somehow Nate managed to get the back of his shorts covered in mud splatters...ha ha! Tanja was smart and wore runners, while Dacs on the other hand likes to dress like he is going to the bar 24/7...so he was wearing riddiculous high tops that he refused to tie up and a leather jacket. I was so scared he was gonna twist his ankle and we would have to carry him back up the trail. We all made it safe though. Once at the cove we went directly through the limestone arch. We got some great pics of the arch and of a giant stone standing in the surf. We walked back through the arch, where there were lots of other people, and we had to wait our turn to get pictures with the waterfall. The walk back up was almost all uphill and there were alot of stairs. There was a little forest walk that we took that veered off the original trail we walked down. It had some pretty cool little paths through the bush and some really neat flowers and foilage.
Our next stop was Coromandel Town. We took the "309 road"(the scenic route) that had a few cool stops along the way. One being the Kauri Grove. This was a 10 min walk to thirteen 600-year-old giant Kauri trees that escaped the carnaige of 19th century logging. The biggest tree has a 6m circumfrence! and the four of us could not even reach all the way around it! These trees are the widest in NZ but not the tallest...they were pretty amazing. The second stop was the Waiau falls. It was only about a one min walk from the road through a pretty patch of forest to a 10m high falls. It was one of the first waterfalls I have seen in NZ and I thought it was pretty great.
Once we reached Coromandel Town we went strait to the Lion's den backpacker's to check in. It was pretty cool. The hostel was african and north american themed. Our room was called the zebra room. All the beds had zebra print covers and there were african paintings and some cowboy hats. there were 3 single beds, a bunk and a tiny loft called the crows nest that slept one in our room. The room had patio doors leading outside to a little area with a picnic bench and a hammock. After checking in we headed out to find some dinner. We found a cozy little cafe/restaurant that had a few tables left. I ordered a steak, Nate and Dacs had lamb shanks and Tanja ordered a pizza. Everyone's food was delish except Tanja's. They had run out of pizza bases and ended up making her the smallest pizza I have ever seen lol! Tanja always seems to have bad luck with food portions when she goes out with us ha ha!

After our dinner we headed back to the hostel where we made tea and chatted with some of the others staying in our room. One guy was from Germany and the other was from Ireland. In total there were 8 people staying in our room. It was an early night since we were all tired from our trekks. I remember the irish guy coming in and climbing up to the loft...he hit his head on the roof lol! And the only person that snored was Dacs...tiny little Dacs...one guy told us in the morning that he was ready to throw his pillow at him lol!

The next day we decided to drive to the pinnacless walk. Its about a 6-8hour walk with return! Tanja wanted to be home early to work on an assignment though and again Dacs was not really dressed properly for a hike. We decided just to walk to the swing bridge which was about an hour with return. The bridge was really cool. More like some wire suspended across a river with enough room for you to put one foot in front of the other. Only one person was aloud on at a time. Once on the other side we walked a bit further up the trail to a viewing point where you could see up the mountain to a waterfall. On the way back down we decided to cross the river over the rocks instead of the bridge. I was so sure one of us was going to fall in. I was the last across and almost slipped. Thank god I made it though cause I had the camera!

After our hike we hopped in the car for the drive home. Dacs really wanted to drive. Now at the beggining of the trip we all had to give our licences...Dacs forgot his so wasnt supposed to drive because if something happened the car wasnt insured under him. Well he had been asking Nate over and over so Nate finally gave in. The road back to the highway was gravel and just wide enough to squeeze two cars side by side. Well Dacs apparently with his 24/7 pimp bar style is also a race car driver...he was racing down those windy gravel back roads like there was no tomorow. We were not in a hurry to get back and could not understand why this kid had to drive so fast. You could not tell if there were cars coming around the next bend or not and I was ready to scream at him to pull over. We caught up to another vehicle on the road and I thought thank god he will have to slow down now, but no Dacs rode this guys ass until they had enough room to let us squeeze by and then we started the mad dash again! Finally we made it to the open highway and he seemed to settle down a bit. Then he got tired of driving and Nate took the wheel again. I was never so happy or relieved!

We made it back to Auckland around 4pm sunday. Then Dacs says to Nate to drive to his house, we can pick up his car and then drop off the rental and he will drive us home...WHAT?! If Dacs had a car this whole time then why did we rent a car in the first place!? So we drop the car off and get a ride home from Dacs...in his beamer...with leather interior...did I mention he has the seat so far leaned back that there is no room for my legs in the back seat. He's so bad ass!

All in all it was a really great way to spend the weekend and I am glad we went...what an adventure :)