North Island Adventures Days 4 and 5

I'm back from tramping. I said I was doing Gillespie but we got down there and chose a different route. I'll save the details for another post.

Day four the weather was poor.

We awoke at Daly's Hut.


Walked out through jungle stuffs.


These cows followed us as we crossed their paddock. Rachel was terrified. I figured they either expected us to feed them or to move them to a grassier area.


We drove up the Coromandel Peninsula. Beautiful but the weather was not too hot.


We stopped at a place on the Coromandel called Long Bay where there was a walk to a huge Kauri tree. Ate lunch here.


Continued around and stopped at Hot Water Beach, disappointed that we'd missed high tide. We decided to find a hut south near where Daly's Hut was and come back up the next day to have another shot at the Coromandel with good weather.

We stayed at Te Rereatukahina Hut which we'd thought had burned down.. the signage wasn't too good and we got there around nine so it was totally dark. We were standing about 20 meters from the hut and couldn't see it. Exciting stuff.

Day 5. Coromandel with good weather!

A picture of the hut the next day when the sun had come up and we could see where we were.


Walked out and crossed the river we'd crossed coming in. We were a bit worried it would be too high as it had been raining a bit throughout the night but it turned out that the river was deeper the night before when we came in. When we came in it was a bit risky actually.. just over my waist and quite swiftly moving.


Had a delicious breakfast (we hadn't had a warm meal in 4 days) at a place along the road.


We drove up to the Coromandel again and went to Cathedral Cove before Hot Water Beach as we had time before low tide.

Cathedral Cove. Totally reminded me of Bermuda.




It was too beautiful to not go for a swim.


Hot Water Beach. Met some people who'd done this once before and decided to share the job of digging a pool.


Had a beer while lying in a hot pool with the ocean waves crashing in. Thank you Angie for making this a dream of mine. It was worth it.


We then drove down to Te Puke which is about an hour north of Rotorua. Rachel's father had set us up with a place to stay on a kiwi fruit farm there and we were more than happy to have a shower. Claire (pictured) was home alone and she took great care of us :)


We had our own little room at the kiwi farm. It was so nice of them to put us up. We even got to wash our tramping clothes!