Coromandel

On the way to Coromandel from the Waitakere Ranges, we stopped at Mercer Cheese Shop. When I research a trip, I dig pretty deep for things to see and do. Mercer Cheese won’t appear in any travel guides, it’s a local secret. It was a tiny shop in a tiny town where a Dutch cheesemaker makes gouda and blue cheese. They will let you sample some of the cheese, but you have to be a little coy about it. It’s not like wine-tasting, you have to let them know you seriously want to buy some cheese. The cheeses were very good, we got to sample about 5 of them, bought two goudas and some blue cheese for our lunch sandwiches.

We spent 2 nights on Coromandel Peninsula. The first night just south of the town of Coromandel, on the western shore. The second night at Cook’s Beach on the eastern shore. Roads are considerably narrower and it was much hillier than expected.

That day we did two short walks to viewpoints. We loved the view from Tokatea Lookout. It was about a 15-minute drive from Coromandel Town. The Kauri Block Track was right in town. It was a bit odd in that you walked behind some people’s backyards at the beginning of the track. We only saw one other couple on each of these tracks, so pretty much had them to ourselves, which was nice.

Coromandel’s main tourist attraction is Driving Creek Walkway. It seemed so commercial and overpriced, we skipped it. $35/pp to ride a narrow-gauge railroad that ends at a tower with a view seemed money wasted and I couldn’t imagine the view would have been any better than Tokatia Lookout (or Castle Rock to come!). Plus you’d be jammed onto the tower with all the other passenger of the train. It just wasn’t of interest.

The town is very small, basically two blocks long. We walked around and got an ice cream and headed to our cottage. We loved our accommodation and it had a fabulous view. There was a cove behind the house that I would have loved to explore if we had more time.

The next morning, we drove the 309 to Waiau Falls. It is far smaller than the many other waterfalls we’ve seen in New Zealand. But since it’s less than a 5-minute walk from the road, there’s no reason to pass it by.

I had read that along the 309, there was a man named Stu, somewhat a loner, who lived in a trailer and cared for wild pigs. You couldn’t miss them! Mama had piglets and they were all around, but we never saw Stu. One pig decided to rub his behind on our rear fender. It rocked us around quite a bit and dislodged the panel. Good thing we took out the zero-excess – because how do you explain that?! We went to The Waterworks, a paid attraction along the road. It was cute and creative. You could spend a lot of time here. There were lots of signboards with jokes and quips on them and active water toys to play with. There were so many other things we wanted to do this day, that we didn’t stay as long as we could have.

But Castle Rock was another challenge we loved – and we were the only ones there. It took 4 limbs to make it to the top and the views were incredible!

Upon advice to not continue 309 to east Coromandel, we headed back and routed around SH25 and detoured to New Chums Beach. You start at a rather nice beach, although this day it had a lot of red seaweed about.

Then you have to cross an estuary at mid to low tide, scramble along a rocky cliffface, find the trail over the saddle of the point, and walk to New Chums Beach. There’s no road access.

Nice adventure to get to it, but we aren’t really ones to just sit on a beach, so didn’t stay long.

We ate our lunch in the shade of the trees and decided to go. Going back through the saddle, we took a spur track and hiked up to the point called “Chums Look Out”, another 4-limb scramble. Our geocaching app said there was a cache there. Another couple was at the top and we had to explain to them what we were looking for. We never did find it though.

Nearby is Opera Point. It’s not well-known, but as long as we were in the area – why not? It started with a walk along the estuary. There was a family enjoying a tree swing at the inland beach. We continued walking around the point and arrived at a nice cove with a large rock formation with a hole through it. Fred walked around and took photos of the rocky shore beyond the cove. That’s when I looked down and notices tons of shells laying amongst the rocks. I’ve never seen anything like it!

Our accommodation this night in a cottage at an organic farm. We found the cottage and were the only guests of the night. The owners had left a bowl of fresh fruit from their orchard and we settled down on the deck with some wine and cheese. Their dog, Rusty, came to join us.

At this time, we were receiving notices that back home, a storm had hit full force. Roads were closed, power was out for 3-5 days, there was fear that our water supply would run out (no power meant no pumping the water out of the creek). I kind of felt guilty sipping wine and eating cheese on our porch. It was a simply gorgeous day and the place was so idyllic. Hmmm, should I post this picture to the folks at home?

Next morning, we hiked to Cathedral Cove. Of course, it was busy with tourists! Was it worth it? Yes! Because we had stayed close by, we probably got the last parking space left at the closest carpark. Interesting to see homes along the road up there asking for $10 to park. It isn’t too far to default to Hahei Beach and hike around the coast, adding half an hour each way. And probably more manageable and less costly than parking at someone’s home on the hill!

When we packed up and drove down the eastern coast, we stopped to hike Mt Tapu near Tairua – and certainly weren’t the only ones. Too many people! My photos may show beautiful views, but there were many people around, it was sometimes difficult to take tourist-free photos. Also a group of 4 teenage girls chattered constantly, it was really annoying! We would have enjoyed this much more if there were fewer people. We drove out through Tairua and I had seen an entry on the forum stating Tairua was a “sleepy little town”. Sleepy it is not! It was a happening place and people milling about on both sides of the road as we drove through.

We also stopped to hike around the mining ruins at Broken Hills.

There were two entrances to the area and all my data indicated that parking at the far entrance would be closer to the walks we wanted to do. Unfortunately, it wasn’t clear about the stream we had to cross. I don’t know where or how we were supposed to cross it, because it was deep!

So we drove back around to the campground end and started our walks from there. There were some cool tracks to explore. I’m really sorry we didn’t allocate more time for this (by not going to Mt Paku and starting off on the right carpark!). We did manage the Water Race Loop and found a cool (unnamed) waterfall there.

We continued on through Morrinsville and all its ceramic cows. Then found our cottage at the horse farm in Karapiro.