Whitianga

From Coromandel Town we ended up back at Whitianga - at the 'On the Beach' YHA that we were at before.  As it is the weekend,  and the ICC Cricket final is on,  we decided to have a day off and stay here until Monday.  We fly home on Tuesday.  We are staying with friends in Auckland on Monday night. 

Today (Sunday), we went to New Chums Beach. It was a bit of a trek to get there,  but worth it. A beautiful beach.  I went for a swim - well,  a splash about.

We came back to the main beach and had lunch,  then we bought ice creams and ate them by the beach before coming back to eat steak and salad. 

We are still alone in our 'flat' and it's nice.  I'm about to go to bed.  Tomorrow we drive to Auckland for the last bit of our trip.  

The Coromandel and Hot Water Beach

We decided to try to get to the Coromandel Peninsula. This weekend is the national celebration of the Treaty of Waitangi.  I didn't know this when I booked the place in Paihia.  As we left,  things were hotting up with Maori tribes arriving and lots of celebration planning.  It's a long drive - we thought that we would do about 2.5 hours each.  As it turned out,  K did about four,  and I did the rest.

We passed Hot Water Beach on the way,  and the conditions were just right - so we spent about an hour digging holes and sitting in the very hot water.  It was great.

We carried on to Whitianga and a very nice room at a hostel right on the beach.  It was like staying at someone's house circa 1960. Long walk along the shell covered beach made a nice end to the evening. Only one night here so we were up bright and early for the drive down to Rotorua. We were going via Matamata and Hobbiton!