Mountains, Mountains & More Mountains!

After rolling down a Giant hill in what can only be described as continuous body slam (Zorbing), we decided to take it easy and drive up to Tauronga. Pronounced To-ron-ga after miss pronouncing it to pretty much every Kiwi we had conversed with.

We arrived at our camping ground with a huge agenda and not the fun sort! Washing a billion loads of washing, filling 80 water bottles and a charging 12 different appliances with our one tiny adapter.


At this point we thought we deserved a dinner out and checked out our ever faithfull guidebook for the best grub in town! A little Moroccan restaurant came up trumps (Zeytins) and before we knew it we were ordering falafel as big as fist and baked brie large enough to dunk a whole loaf of bread in!

After exploring Tauronga Dean caught sight of an unusually placed mountain at the peak of the peninsula surrounded by the sea. Before I knew it we were parking the car and power walking towards this mini peak. Although this could be mistaken for a large hill it still boasts a 200m cardio arresting climb.

The view from Mount Maunganui

The drive to Waihi led us to a taste of home with Cornish pump houses and mines galore. This little village would have been a hive of activity for the Gold mine industry many years ago, but the most interesting feature of the town was the recently relocated Cornish Pump house. Weighing in at a staggering 1840 tonnes this 80 year old, three storey building was braced and moved to a more secure location! That would take a lot of horses!

Coromandel is well known for its mining history so we thought it would only be right to explore some of the disused mines, tracks, tunnels and very very dark holes.
Dean was keen to check out the very dark, scary and cold 1 km long railway tunnel as we approached the middle our imagination started to play tricks on us, we veered away from dark passages and side walks, although I don't think Deans conversations about homeless people, zombies and scary prospectors really helped.

As if that wasn't scary enough we proceeded into a huge lightless network of disused tunnels and passages. As you see a flicker of light drift towards you, you start to hope its another couple of walkers and not...well a homeless man, Zombie or scary prospector!!

On our way to the peninsula of Coromandel (Hahei, Hot water Beach) we passed through the quaint yet old school town of Peroa, famous for a certain soft drink "L&P". 
You English folk wont know what this is. 
Well.....
Its like a really refreshing, lemony lemonade with a hint of elderflower. This drink was sourced from this local town until the giants "Coca Cola" bought the product and all the rights to it. It is now mass produced in Auckland (but just as delicious)!

After our refreshing lemony pitstop we headed on up the Coromandel and stumbled across paradise! We trekked up and down a very hilly path and eventually got to Cathedral Cove, after briefly stopping off at Gemstone bay! (No gemstones there sorry) just crayfish, snapper and stingray. It said you could snorkel but neither of us were taking our chances not with that lot in the water.

We finally arrived at Cathedral Cove and it was like a screen saver. White sand blue seas with huge chunks of rock that had drifted away into the sea, the odd tree perched on top for company. 

The main attraction of the beach as you probably guessed was, the loosely associated Cathedral arch shaped rock that you could walk through. 

After this 70min trekk back, we drove over to Hot Water Beach for a stroll along the sands. 

We set up camp in a Top 10 holiday park and decided to walk down to the beach at 7 am and start the big dig. 

Hot water beach gets its name from the insanely hot springs that bubble from below the sand and burn your bum when you sit in them (60 degrees) ! We spent most of our time trying to rebuild our fortress as the freezing cold sea water fought its way in.

and oh yeah, nearly forgot. We won a share of the NZ lottery...