Making it happen

So I'm going to type quickly as I am on the clock here at the Tatahi Lodge in Hahei, New Zealand. Basically this will be a completely logistic entry. I have decided that I will also intermingle various esoteric musings on what I am doing and how I am feeling, but for clarity's sake, I'll write those in seperate entries. That being said.....

I decided on Sunday that a car rental would be the best thing for me to do as opposed to multiple bus packages or buying a beat up car. Three days later, I can confidently say that so far the rental car is proving its worth several times over and is clearly shaping up to be one of the first really good decisions I have made. The whole driving on the left thing freaked me out before I actually got behind the wheel, but in practice its not too bad. There are still a few rules I don't understand, but I am not driving the I-95 corridor, there a few people here and even fewer cars, making highway and country driving rather stress free.

Getting out of Auckland was easy enough, I drove through a cold wind and rain east, and then north to the Coromandel Peninsula on Monday afternoon. I arrived in an old gold mining town of Thames (not very attractive, but it is the jumping off point for exploring the peninsula). I arrived at the local international backpackers hostel around 6pm a cold rain continued with coastal winds adding an additional punch to my perverbial stomach. The hostel was really great, very warm, with a coal burning stove in a living room, pool table, and nice kitchen. I got my own room and I think the only other people were a kid from the states (actually he was from NJ) but he was boring so I left him alone and two german girls who were cold and mean in a way that only germans can be cold and mean (no offense Henrik .

All along the point of getting to Coromandel on Monday night was in large part based on the weather which looked like it would be clearing on Tuesday. I woke up on Tuesday to dry but overcast skies. Having escaped the city, and finally in the country where I wanted to be all along, I moved quickly to get to a hike I had researched the night before. Generally, the hike was a loop up to an area called The Pinnacles where you could see both coast lines, about 600 meters up. (I will be using kilometers and meters as measurements, you can do the conversions). The hostel host politely advised me at 9am that I was running late and would be hard pressed to get out of the bush before night fall, given that in his estimate it got dark in the bush around 4pm. With those words of wisdom, I motored the car out of town and up about 25 kilometers of mountain road, which for the most part were unpaved.
The hike went fine, all overcast, not good for pictures, but I completed the 14km loop in just under 6 hours and was back at my car by 4 with daylight to spare (i'll blog the entire hike in another entry devoted to hiking shortly.)

I got back on the highway and decided that with clearing skies I wanted to head even further north to the quaint resort town of Coromandel about 50 km up the coast line from Thames. The drive itself was intense. Think the Pacific Coast Highway in California, only narrower, with no guardrails, and with locals tailgating the entire way. The speed limits in NZ are strange. In towns they are 50 kph everywhere else they are 100kph (or about 60 miles per hour). I think you would die driving this road at 100kph, but apparently the locals still do it. Anyways, I mosy on into Coromandel around 6pm. Stop into the Tui Lodge, a recommendation from the hostel owner in Thames, grab a bed (once again in a room by myself) and headed into town.

A quick note on food - with the rental car I have embraced the grocery store as its just so easy to get to stores and carry food around. Groceries are cheaper here than in America, and stores seem to have higher grade produce (like Whole Food levels) I have one of those refrigerated tote bags, and with temps rarely rising out of the 50s, food is preserved through the day before I get to the next place. (dont worry, Im not carrying around milk in my car for 6 days at a time). Point is, Im cooking most nights and making breakfasts most mornings on my own. In Coromandel, I was too exhausted to cook so I grabbed some fish n' chips for 5 bucks and headed back to the lodge. I ended up eating dinner with two swiss girls who were much nicer than the germans. I'll write about my thoughts on hostel conversations later as it deserves its own entry. The lodge also had free washers so I got my first wash in, which was kind of necessary.

I awoke today to a crisp 50 degrees and mostly clear skies. Although tired from the hike the day before I was on a mission today to see as much of the peninsula as possible before the next storm rolls in later in the week. All in all, I probably put down about 200 kilometers circling first north of Coromandel to the town of Colville. To call it a town is a bit of a loose definition as it was nothing more than a general store and post office. By ratio I'd say it was 1000:1 lambs to people for the entire morning. I can try to analogize the land to other areas I've traveled perhaps the French or Swiss countrysides, a bit of coastal California, and a bit of Cape Cod and the Maine coastline, but really its all of those places minus all of the people. I should remind everyone that while I am in what amounts to the resort area for Aucklanders during summer weekends, it is all but deserted at this time of year. From Colville I looped through more mountain roads, through coastal ridgelines and pastures before getting back to Coromandel for lunch. A note on Coromandel -- basically one hippie can sniff out when he is among his brethren, lots of art stores, organic food shops, mixed in with fishing industry types. Maybe, in a rough way like Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Kinda.

Out of Coromandel it was 46km across the peninsula to Whitianga (pronounced Fitianga, all wh places are F sounding). The goal here was The Cathederal Cove, a Big Sur-esque rock outcropping along the shoreline that amounts to a cave along the beach that links one beach to another. I wanted to get there for the sunset and I did. The photographer in me was disappointed as I did miss direct sunlight on the rocks, but I got enough good shots and the weather was just amazing. Mid to upper 50s, calm and clear. I passed many quiet beaches along the way to Whitianga, getting out at a few and walking along them. I was the only person on 5 miles stretches of white quartz sand beaches. It was a very nice experience.

I am now heading to sleep, the lodge is the only one open in town so its a bit more crowded the past few nights - a german family, a few americans, and korean girl. Tomorrow morning I'll be waking up for low tide and heading to hot water beach where you can dig into the sand and create your own hot whirlpool of water. I'll report on what this actually means shortly. Until then....good night or good morning