Tairua is a small town of around 1500 people set inside the Coromandel National Park. We were lucky enough to be invited to stay with Tim and Heather Gale, two former pupils of mine from Instow, North Devon, in their holiday home on Mount Paku. The 3 storey, glass fronted house overlooks the harbour and is absolutely amazing.

The weather for the first couple of days was really good and we managed to get to a couple of beaches. The first was Ocean Beach, which is only a ten minute walk away. Really nice beach with some nice size waves to get back into the surfing. The next beach was Sailors Grave, a stunning beach with only a handful of other people on. Both were a nice surprise as we were lead to believe it wouldn't be warm enough for the beach during our visit!

Over the course of the 8 days, I think we played a few holes of golf on 3 different occasions. It was awesome to be playing for a bit of fun and best of all - in boardies, a vest and barefoot! Plus I think I managed to sort out a few problems the guys were having.

On one of the days, Tim and Heather were kind enough to lend us their car so we took the opportunity to drive up to Cathedral Cove. We first stopped at Hahei beach which was very pretty then drove to the car park at CC. The walk down takes about 45 minutes and you pass lovely little bays called Gemstone and Stingray Bay. On arrival at Cathedral Cove, we spent some time in the crystal clear waters and enjoyed the sunshine. The main picture of the arched rock is seen on postcards all over the Coromandel.

On Wednesday we were up at 6am to go fishing on Tim's boat but unfortunately the wind meant the waves were too big to cross the bar. So instead we met up with Lionel and Gay (who we had met the previous evening at a dinner party) and headed for Broken Hills and the Collins Drive Walk. It was a 3 hour round trip which took in stunning views from the look out at the top. We then came across the Golden Hills Mine Area where a tunnel was driven through the hill "in a fruitless attempt to find a quartz reef with payable ore." We needed torches to get through the 500 metre tunnel and when turned off there were lots of glow worms hanging from the top of the tunnel. At the bottom we decided to go for a swim in the river (in our underwear as we hadn't planned it!), it was a great way to end the morning.

For 3/4 of the days the heavens opened and we were confined to the house. Although this was a little frustrating, it did allow us the time to sort out our washing, do a couple of blogs, back up pictures to cd etc etc.

One afternoon Ali and I took the 2 seater kayak down into the harbour and went right across the other side and into the mangroves where we saw two pretty big eels swimming alongside us.

On our last day Tim took us out in his beautiful boat as we'd been so unlucky with the sea that we hadn't managed to get out and go fishing (the main thing we wanted to do while in Tairua). We went up and down the harbour and went into Pauanui where we floated past multi million dollar homes, with large boats, their own jetties and even one with its own heli-pad!!

Its now our last evening and we have a roast dinner to look forward to (our first one since leaving the uk). The bus is picking us up at 8am tomorrow morning and from there we head to Raglan and back to our Stray bus.

We've had a great time in Tairua and can't quite believe how lucky we've been to stay with Tim and Heather. Amazing location, amazing hosts, amazing time.

Alis trying to upload the photos as I write this

all our love

Phil and Ali xx