We stayed for five nights in Coromandel town. It was a two hour ferry ride over there from Auckland and then a bus dropped us off at our hostel. We pitched our tent in the hostel garden. This took some time as Alan was getting quite frustrated. Our tent was a bit rubbish in that the outer layer never seemed to sit properly and reach the ground on all four sides at the same time. We got it as best we could. The weather was a lot warmer as it is spring now in NZ, and it was fine to camp. However there were several showery days. Some nights the wind was very strong and blowing the tent all over the place. To be fair though the tent stood up to the test and we remained warm and dry the whole time.

The hostel was quite quiet the whole time but apparently the whole town gets extremely busy in the summer. In the evenings we mostly chilled out with other travellors, playing poker, chatting, watching films and drinking wine. We went on a night out one night with three kiwi guys. They were from a different part of New Zealand but were staying at the hostel five nights a week because they were building a house nearby. After a lot of poker and beer we headed down to the local pub which was still pretty lively. Friendly locals. Karoke was involved. It was quite a late night but we heard them leaving for work at 7am the next morning and they sounded as cheery as ever. It was fun.

It was quite a small town but there were quite a few attractions to keep us busy. The hostel offered free bikes which came in pretty useful. The old guy at the hostel even gave us a lift a couple of times in his truck which was really nice. It was a good hostel actually. Anyway, we played golf a couple of days on the local course which was really cheap, as the weather was good. I will say Alan does have a talent for hitting trees. Haha. We also went on a walk around the Kauri groves. We had heard about these which are the biggest tress in New Zealand. They were pretty huge (see photos). There was a nice short walk though them and past a waterfall.

On the same day we went to this Waterworks outdoor park which is a local attraction. I was expecting it to be pretty rubbish but it was actually pretty good. They had loads of gadgets/inventions you could play with all made out of old car/tractor parts that squirted water at you went you weren't expecting it. I fell off the seesaw and hurt myself though :(

Another thing we did was go on a tiny scenic railway. A local man (also a potter) had spent about 20 years building it in his spare time. It was about an hours ride through the bush, including several tunnels and bridges. There were some good views from the top.

It did rain heavily one day and we were forced to remain inside. We even had to resort to doing a jigsaw. I hate jigsaws. It had 1000 pieces and took ages but once we'd started we had to finish it.

Overall we had a chilled out time in Coromandel. It was a good place to be to wind down our time in New Zealand and it was good to camp as well. On the last day we got the ferry back to Auckland.