Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach

To take our minds off our car troubles and not waste time, Katy and I took a bus up to our next destination, the Coromandel Penninsula. The bus was pretty inexpensive and it was nice not to have to worry about driving ourselves. We met a girl from Germany at the hostel we stayed at the night before. She has hitchhiked EVERYWHERE since she arrived in New Zealand AND she's by herself...crazy! But she said that she hasn't had any trouble, people always pick her up and she gets where she wants to go pretty quickly. Anyway, when we were talking to her, she said she was going to Coromandel as well and she had booked the same hostel as us. We asked if she was taking the bus and she said no, she was hitching...stupid question I guess. And the next day she ended up getting here before us!

The hostel we're staying at is called The Cat's Pyjamas (yes, they spell pyjamas with a Y). There are cats here but none of them are wearing pajamas so I feel a little bit misled. It's a pretty nice hostel...the lady in charge is really nice and gave us some good recommendations on where to eat and things like that. Unfortunately, when we got here yesterday it was rainy and gross so that ruined any beach plans. We just hung around town yesterday because we basically had no choice. The Coromandel Peninsula is where all the mussel farms are, so we found a good seafood restaurant and got some mussels for dinner. Really good and also cheap!

This morning we got to sleep in a little bit for change. Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach are later in the day type activities because of the tides. The hostel lady set it up so that we shared a cab with another girl and an older lady who were going to the same places so it would be less expensive for us. The girl was about our age, from Slovakia, by herself and also a hitchhiker! The older lady was from Holland. The cab dropped us off for the walk to Catherdral Cove. Cathedral Cove is a big limestone arch by the beach. Apparently Chronicals (what?!) of Narnia was filmed there. It was a 45 min walk each way and about 20 min walks to a couple of other little bays along the way. I have no idea how, but the walk was uphill both ways. It was a HARD walk. Cathedral Cove was worth it though...it was really pretty and exotic looking and we got to lay around on the beach for awhile. When we were walking in the cove, there was a little penguin sitting by itself. It was REALLY cute but didn't look like it was doing too well:( The little girl playing in the sand next to it said it was sick and afraid of the water. Not sure she was a reliable source though, unless she's some sort of 8 year old penguin prodigy.

After we walked BACK up the hill/stairs and were almost ready to kill ourselves, we took a nap on a grassy hill that had a great view. The other lady and the girl met us there and we went on to Hot Water Beach (we arranged for the cab to meet us there). The big deal with Hot Water Beach is that there's a natural hot spring on the beach and you rent a shovel, dig a hole, let it fill with water, and sit in the jacuzzi you just made. The only thing is...it's only a certain part of the beach so everyone is crowded into one little area. In some places, the water is so hot that you can see it bubble up from the sand because it's boiling. In the pictures you can see the steam coming off the sand. I burned my feet a couple times. But once we dug our hole, it was pretty cool to just sit there and relax.

Once the tide came in and washed away all the holes everyone dug, the cab picked us up again and took us back to the hostel. Katy and I barely ate anything all day and were starving so we went to dinner at an Indian restaurant we passed by the night before. It was SO good.

We're staying here at The Cat's Pyjama's again tonight, catching the bus back to Thames in the morning, and going to see what the damage is on our car. They're supposed to start working on it first thing in the morning so hopefully we'll have an estimate before we get back and it's something that's fixable (eek!).

Then, I HOPE we can get going to our next place by tomorrow afternoon.

Bad Days:(

These last couple days haven't been the best. Yesterday we had a full day of driving (about 10 hours on and off) and I found out that my dog Josie had to be put to sleep:( Pretty much an awful day.

Then today we had some car trouble and since tomorrow is Saturday, nothing can be fixed until Monday morning. Good thoughts and prayers are appreciated. Hopefully it's fixable and won't be too expensive. We just stayed around town today and booked a bus tour for tomorrow up to the next place we were planning on going. Hopefully we can forget about everything for awhile and have fun up there. We're going up to the Coromandel Pennisula to see a rock arch and swim at the hotwater beach. We'll be back here to Thames Sunday night so we can check on our car Monday morning.

No fun pictures this time because we haven't done anything fun...maybe after this next trip.

Sorry for the depressing post...

What the flip was Grandma doing at the sand dunes?

Last night we both slept a lot better than the night before. It ended up pouring most of the night so maybe that helped. We had laid some towels and bathing suits out to dry on the picnic table and they were completely soaked in the morning. It’s also weird because it’s hard to have a concept of time here. When it gets dark, we take showers and get ready for bed. We were both in our van bed last night and were wondering why we weren’t really tired yet. Katy checked the time and it was around 9 o’clock. I went to sleep anyway.

We had to get up around 7 this morning to catch our bus tour to Ninety Mile beach. Our tour was barely half full and of course we were the youngest ones on it, like always. And even though there weren’t that many people on the tour, there was still a question asker. There’s one on every tour and in every college class. How long does it take for an avocado tree to bear fruit? What type of cows are those? What does the name of this town translate to? Has this beach eroded very much in the last few years? Do the chickens have large talons? The poor bus driver. You could tell he was so annoyed. And of course she was American, ugh. And I think also a little bit racist.

First we stopped for ice cream. I got some weird kind they have here called Hokey Pokey…it’s vanilla ice cream with pieces of honey comb in it and it tastes like crème brule, yum. Then we stopped at a gum tree preserve…some sort of ancient buried forest where they used to (and still do I think) get resin and amber and all that Jurassic Park type stuff. We took a short tour and the question asker asked questions.

Then we went up to Cape Reinga where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet. You can actually see the waves from the two bodies of water crashing together, it’s crazy. There was also a lighthouse at the northern most point.

Then we went down to Ninety Mile Beach to dune surf. They gave us boogie boards and an instructor gave an overview of how to do it without eating a mouthful of sand or flipping over. Then he showed us where we would be walking up the dune. I thought for sure they would have some type of tram or something to take you up there…apparently not. It was STEEP and walking up such a high hill in the sand really sucked. He had us go down one by one and made sure we had the right form laying on our board. It was SO fun. You go really fast and have to put your feet down in order to stop. Some nice Australian lady who wasn’t doing it agreed to take pictures of us. I’m the blue spec in the picture and Katy is the green spec. Needless to say, we only did it once since walking up the dune was so awful.

When everyone was done “dune surfing,” the bus took us down to Ninety Mile Beach. Turns out Ninety Mile Beach isn’t 90 miles, it’s about 60. We hit a sea gull while we were driving down the beach, haha. Other than that, the drive down the beach was pretty uneventful. There’s absolutely nothing down there…just beach, no houses, nothing. We were on a dirt road at one point and the bus driver called it “the highway.”

It ended up being a really fun tour and only cost us $68 NZ. We got a discount because we bought something called a Holiday Card that gets you a discount on these campsites, attractions, and certain restaurants.

When we got back, we grilled again…same stuff. We’re not tired of it yet. Tomorrow we’ll probably be driving most of the day to get to our next area. Not sure of the next time I’ll be able to post but hopefully soon.

Camping at Whatuwhiwhi

Still here at the campsite...eating a Cadbury Cream Egg and drinking a beer. Katy and I found this really good beer called Radler. It's a medium dark lager with a little bit of a citrus taste.

Sooo last night was the first night sleeping in the van. It would have been fine except Katy snored the entire night. I don't know if it wasn't properly ventilated or what, but it was awful. I'll just have to get some ear plugs in the next town we're in. Other than that, it was fine. It gets pretty cold at night so we didn't have to worry about being hot. It just sucks because we're kind of the "trashy" people at this campsite. Everyone else has fancy campers or RVs with formal dining rooms and offices and about a million other nooks that pop out of nowhere to make up their camping mansions. Oh well.

Today we went over to a couple other beaches nearby. One was a horseshoe shaped bay with really calm water...kind of daker sand but completely clear blue water. As we were walking up this beach, one of those big fuzzy bumble bees landed on Katy's shirt. (This wasn't our first encounter with bees...the other day one flew in the window while I was driving and landed on my lap. hink Tommy Boy with the deer in the car. They come out of nowhere.) Anyway, so I said, "Katy you have a bee on you." I brushed it off for her with my towel and we kept walking. "Katy, the bee is on you again." I brushed it off again with my towel and we kept walking...well, it was following Katy so she started running away from it. So she's running down the beach with the big giant bee flying about 2 ft behind her. It might have been the funniest thing I've ever see it. And no, I didn't help her, I just laughed at her. But I did suggest that she take her shirt off because it obviously liked her white shirt. She took off her shirt really fast, balled it up and we both ran away.

The rest of the day was pretty relaxing. We went to the other beach which had white sand instead of regular sand. I don't really understand how a beach that's right down the road can look completely differnent. We were also the only ones on the entire beach...which wasn't surprising since New Zealand has a population of like 30. AND most of them live in the North Island where we are right now. Last night we were talking to some European guy at our campsite and he said that if we really want to see scenery and a sparse population then go to the South Island. Umm, what? I'm pretty sure I'm in the most beautiful place I've ever been and there are no people around. I'm confused...but also excited to see what "good scenery and no people" looks like.

Sorry about not posting pictures yet. I tried to post a couple last time but they didn’t go through and I didn’t have time to mess around with it.

We had some time to kill the other day before our boat ride, so we walked around Paihia for awhile. It’s a cute town with lots of shops and cafes. We walked a couple miles up the main road and looked at some scenery which took up most of the morning. All the little kids in town had blonde curly hair and looked like little cherubs…cute though. We got some lunch, packed a bag for the night and decided to sit in a park across from the wharf before our boat ride. I fell asleep, Katy read books. Got my first semi-sunburn from napping and it wasn’t even sunny. Stupid hole in the ozone.

A small boat picked us up at quarter till 5 and took us over to the big boat. Funnily enough, the crew on the boat looked like grown up versions of the baby cherubs we had been seeing all day. Before one of them showed us to our room, he said that we could upgrade to our own room for $20 more each. We said no that’s ok…well, we ended up with our own room anyway! They tried to trick us but we didn’t fall for it:) The crew and everyone else on the boat with us was really nice. LOTS of Europeans. I started to feel sea sick when we first got on the boat but felt a lot better once we started moving. When we got out into the bay, they let us fish off the back of the boat to try to catch some fish to have with dinner. I caught a baby fish but that’s it. No one caught anything big enough to keep, which was too bad. Dinner was good otherwise though. After dinner we got to go night kayaking to try to see the phosphorescence light up in the water but the moon was too bright and nothing was lighting up:( Still really cool though. We went out in small groups away from the boat and the stars were really bright. Even though I was mad the giant moom ruined the phosphorescnece, it was really pretty how it reflected off the water. Got to bed shortly after that and just because we had our own room DID NOT mean it was comfortable. The mattress was so thin and uncomfortable and I was freezing all night so I didn’t get much sleep. Good thing I took a nap in the park I guess.

Yesterday morning we went over to a private island to snorkel, kayak, and hang out at the beach. The snorkeling wasn’t great…I think the water was murky from the rain they’ve been having. All I saw was a lame starfish on a rock. Kayaking was a lot more fun because you could enjoy all the awesome scenery and the water was really still because we were so far into the bay. After we were done at the beach, we started back to Paihia. On the way back, one of the cherubs cracked open some sea urchins for us to try. They were pretty good but would have been better with Tabasco or something.

Once we got back to Paihia, Katy and I went and fetched our van so we could move on to the next town. We were working our way up to Doubtless Bay where there are supposed to be a lot of pretty beaches. But since we still hadn't set up our “bed” in our car, we stopped at a place called The Warehouse which is kind of like Kmart and got blankets, sheets and some other stuff we needed but hadn't been able to find so far. After that we drove about an hour to a little town in Doubtless Bay called Manganui. We stayed at a little hotel there last night and got some good fish and chips next door. I always get half oysters, half fish because the oysters are so dang good here.

This morning we got breakfast at a cafe next door to the hotel. Everywhere you go has this great granola stuff with fruit and yogurt on it...so good. At this place, when I asked for coffee, the girl said they didn't have regular coffee but she said a Long Black or a Flat White would be the closest options...umm, what?? I didn't feel like I was quite ready for a Long Black yet, (sounded intimidating) so I went with the Flat White and it was SO good. Why is coffee everywhere else in the world so much better than in the US? I really don't understand.

After breakfast, we went up north a little bit to Cooper's Beach and a camp ground we had read about that was in the town called Whatuwhiwhi. They have laundry and really nice ammenities so we got to wash all of our bed stuff and finally clean out our disgusting car. It's SO much better...I'm actually more than willing to sleep in it now. There's a cat that lives on the campground and decided to take a nap in our car while we were cleaning it out. We named him TimTam.

Having never been camping before (and kind of scared of it), I was really impressed by this place. It's overlooking the beach with mountains behind it, and the kitchen and bathrooms are cleaner than any hostel we've stayed at so far. AND there's a playground with a trampoline. Katy and I played on it this afternoon. We tried to go down to the beach for a little bit but it was so windy that the sand was blowing on us and it hurt. But today was the first day I brought out my giant sun hat. I have a feeling I'm going to be wearing it even more than I expected cause the sun is so incredibly intense. Today I had to hold it on my head the whole time because it was so windy. It blew off once and I had to go chase it.

We went back into town to get some stuff to make our own dinner. We got some vegtables and fish to grill. Everything turned out REALLY good...the fish is amazing here. It was something called Blue Nose...no idea what type of fish it is but I don't really care, it's yummy. Hung out and played cards the rest of the night and drank this really good beer we discovered...talked to a Canadian guy...that's about it.

Tomorrow we'll probably hang around this area and look for some less windy beaches. The next day we're taking a tour up to Ninety Mile beach and going dune surfing...let you know how that turns out, ha.

Sorry these posts haven't exactly been literary masterpeices so far. I'm usually just trying to hurry up and recap the day before either the computer battery dies or I have to move on to the next place. I'll be able to get more creative once I have more time, hopefully.