I set off early (for me, these Kiwi's like early mornings!) North from Rotorua to the Coromandel. This is a peninsular at the top right of the North island. I met up with Alex for the plan of walking up to the Pinnacles. Despite our best intentions the walk was cancelled due it teaming down with rain so we caught up over lunch instead and then headed off in opposite directions! Alex back to Auckland and I contiued up the peninsular. I pretty much followed a map i picked up from the DOC (Department of conservation) office - am really impressed with how NZ and Aus are set up for tourists. Taking i the advertised lookouts I worked my way up to Coromandel town. I unfortunately arrived just before dark therefore cancelling my self made reason to not go for a run! After a refreshing shower I spent the evening chatting to Mike from Colorado who has spent the last 3 months cycling round NZ - he had some interesting stories!
The following day I headed across to the East coast of the peninsular and took in the sights. Cathedral Cove was beautiful and hot water beach was infact hot! The idea is at low tide you can dig a hole in the ground and make your own hot pool. Unfortunately the low tide the day I was there was at least 1/2 M too high so all I managed was to wriggle my feet in the sand whilst stood waist deep in water. Feet got very hot very quickly through! I then ventured further South to Tauranga where I spent the night before climbing Mt Maunganui in the morning. The mountains in this bit of the North Island have gone through a pretty shoddy selection process as I was round it, then up and down it in under 2 hours! I then headed back to Rotorua to catch up with my Bro's.