Rotorua, NZ

We’ve come a fair way south, having left Endless Summer and passed back through Auckland on our way to explore the south portion of the North Island. We left Ahipara and took the ferry across to Rawene, then followed HWY 12 through the Kauri Forest.

The road through the forest was every bit as formidable as the road to Russell, and felt like driving through a tunnel, with treetops forming a roof and dense undergrowth walls as solid as rock. In this forest we saw Tane Mahuta, a 2000 year old tree of enormous girth (though not very impressive height), which is sacred to the Maori natives.

Emerging from the forest we found ourselves in a prairie land, with the first straight pieces of pavement since our arrival. We pushed hard since we did not want to get caught in Auckland rush hour traffic (this being Monday), so passed through Dargaville, joined the main highway at Brynderwyn, and on.

Auckland was a breeze, as we lead the afternoon traffic through the motorways, but we caught a bit of a snag finding our way out of Clevedon on the right road to Orere. That road turned out to be another marvel of curves and hills with outstanding views. After Orere the roads flattened out and straightened out while we rounded the flood plain, and we finally rolled into Thames around 6:00PM. Thames isn’t much of a town, and our hostel wasn’t much of a hostel. Other than the treat of a nice meal at the end of a long driving day, there’s not much to be said about our stay there. We left early.

The Coromandel region is very beautiful, though it might sound the same, just to see it written out. More hills, forests, oceanic overlooks, quaint towns… Our first stop, less than an hour after leaving Thames, was Coromandel Town, which was a very nice little place. We had a break for fresh baked pies, and went for a walk through their small downtown street. Had we overnighted there we may have been tempted to stay longer than a single night, but as it was we carried on.

Our next stop was Hahei, where we illegallly parked for a few minutes to take a quick photo of Cathedral Cove, then rushed down to the Hot Beaches before the tide came in. The sight was amusing, seeing five or six adults sharing a hole dug in the sand. I stuck my foot in an abadoned hole, but it didn’t seem anything special to me.

Our final destination for the day was Whangamata, where we were unable to book a stay prior to arrival. We checked in to another motor camp cabin, which was a very basic cabin, with nothing but beds and a small kitchen. The beach in this town was very nice though, and it also had a pleasant downtown, where we spent some time walking and window shopping. Our sleep would have been perfect if not for an emergency alarm punctuating the night, around 1:45AM. We had no idea what was going on, but it sounded like an evacuation notice. In the morning I found out from the park manager that it signals any kind of “911” call for local emergency volunteer respondants.

In the morning we headed out for Matamata, to finally visit Hobbiton, which was really cool to see, but we can’t say much about it, or post any photos, since we had to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement in order to take the tour. So you’ll have to wait for those gems until we get back. Apparently this is the first ever movie set which allows tours before the movie has been released, so all we can say is that there’s a whole new section being built for The Hobbit. The last part of the tour was a much less secretive

demonstration of the sheep farm (on which the movie set is built), and Christina got to bottle-feed a baby lamb, which for her was a considerable high point of the day, and possibly the trip.

After some mis-routing on our way to Rotorua, we arrived at the Funky Green Voyager hostel. We chose it based on a high rating in the hostel review booklet we’ve been using, and are not at all disappointed. So much so that we have decided to stay an extra night here.