Wet and Dry

Coromandel Town is a most delightful place to stay, and also possibly the quietest we've ever seen, especially at night. Sadly, the time had come to leave the Coromandel Peninsula. We crossed it and came down the east coast. We planned to use the ferry at Whitianga to shortcut the road to Hot Water Beach, but discovered that it's a passenger ferry only. We also discovered that Whitianga is an exceptionally pretty town on Mercury Bay, and was worth more than the fleeting visit we gave it.

We went the long way round into Hot Water Beach. This has to be one of the most attractive ocean side beaches we have found. The sand is yellow, rather than the black characteristic of many New Zealand beaches (predominantly, the ones facing west?), and the water was most appealing, but still way too cold for a dip. The surf was very calm, but we have read this is one of the most dangerous beaches in the country.

The beach gets its name from two very specific locations along it where you can dig a hole in the sand, and sit in a pool of warm water, heated apparently from 5km down. The hot springs are under seawater most of the time, but become exposed only within 2 hours of low tide. The photo is of a poster at the beach, and shows just how close the low tide seawater is to the spring.

Hot Water Beach looks as though it gets very popular in summer, but even now, in winter, it would be a very pleasant place to spend a few days. There are some upmarket establishments there that look very comfortable, and the coffee shop was very pretty (and they rent out shovels for digging down to the hot water!).

But we had decided to put some kilometers under our belt today, and pushed on into and around the Bay of Plenty, eventually stopping at Opotiki as darkness approached, bypassing many places which clearly deserve more of our attention, but in two weeks you can't stop everywhere interesting. We had lunch in an old gold mining town, Waihi, and got lost following the main road through Whakatane. Obviously locals all know the way without the benefit of signage.

Approaching and passing through the Tauranga area we realised why we liked the Coromandel area so much. It was so quiet up there, but around the Bay of Plenty, we rediscovered traffic, and, on New Zealand roads, that's not pleasant. There are very few passing opportunities, and if you're behind someone slow, then, if they don't pull over, you just have to be patient.

The weather forecast was right, and the next day it was bucketing down rain. We had planned to do the trip to Gisborne the scenic long way round on State Highway 35, the coast road around near East Cape, as far east as you can get in New Zealand before Chile. This road had only just been opened after being closed by road slips from storms, and, in heavy rain, we thought "what the hell", let's go that way anyway!

It was well worth it. The rain came in squalls, and some of them were so intense we had to almost stop due to sheeting rain and almost no visibility. But the sheeting was fleeting, and mostly we were able to enjoy the scenery, and under leaden skies and with rough seas and black sands the rocky coastline looked most spectacular. The photo of Clare is on the gloriously beautiful, heavily driftwood strewn beach at Hawai on the west side of the East Cape peninsula. You can see the weather is being kind! The church in the last photo is near Waihau Bay, and contrasts starkly with the dark sea and sky, sitting on its own little point into the Bay of Plenty.

As we reached the east side, the beach sands followed what we now think of as a general rule, and turned from black to white. We went through numerous small towns on this long southerly leg to Gisborne, starting with the rather depressed-looking little village of Te Araroa. Other than the towns, which are located on very pretty bays, the road on this side avoids the coast, and passes through the ubiquitous hilly farmland.

The Lonely Planet guide advises travellers on a limited timeframe to avoid this road - nowhere to pass the "plethora of milk trucks, logging trucks and (unregisterable) ancient cars". Lonely Planet writers must only travel in summer because we encountered almost no vehicles at all, except in the towns, and cruised around the whole distance quite effortlessly.

We spent the night at Wainui Beach, a suburb of Gisborne, at a very luxurious motel. The beach here reminds us of Belongil Spit at Byron Bay. It is very heavily eroded by storms, and attempts to shore up accessways and properties look as though they are being successfully undermined by mother nature.