After a night in Orewa north of Auckland we drove down to the Coromandel area on the east coast. One of Kams lovely work friends Anna let us stay in their great bach in Onemana for a few nights, it was huge with about 5 bedrooms. It was valentines day too so we had a lovely evening with some beersies and proper meat for dinner. As we had been to the Coromandel before we wanted to explore what we hadn't seen yet so we decided to drive to the most northern tip of the peninsula, Jackson Bay. It didn't look too far on the map but we ended up driving for the majority of the day and covering over 300kms. There were several gravel roads (one of which we skidded off!) that were really twisty and narrow which took ages and then the road on the peninsula was very narrow and gravel and at some points there was a sheer drop into the sea. It was definately worth it though as the scenery was just stunning. The sea was very calm and we could see Great Barrier Island in the distance. The water was a lovely bright blue and when we got to Fletchers Bay we had a nice walk. The next few days we went to Peroa - this is where the L&P drink was made, L&P is a famous kiwi drink its like a nice lemonade and there is chocolate with it in too, and we went to Karangihake gorge where we had a pleasant walk, some of it went through an old mining tunnel and we got splattered in mud.

Next we headed further down the East coast to Tauranga, lots of kiwis go there on hen and stag do's so we were expecting a lively seaside town but it was actually a bit like Bognor - lots of people go there but you wonder why!! Next to Tauranga is a little place called Mt Maunganui which was nicer - we climbed up the mount and had great views over the area. We then had a few days in smelly Rotorua, again we had been here before so we just chilled out and tried not to gag on the sulpher smell of the geothermal areas!

We then went back to the East coast to a town called Whakatane, it was a nice seaside town and here we blew our budget a little bit to do the White Island tour. White Island is an active marine volcano two hours boat ride away. It was a pretty choppy ride out and there were a few pukers, as we got closer to it you could see the smoke bellowing out the cone. We got off the boat and were given hard hats and gas masks by our guide. It was a really surreal landscape, a bit like the moons surface. I didn't know why we needed the gas masks until we got closer to some smoke puffing out of a rock, the smoke was really acidic and burnt the back of your throat. The tour guide said that their clothes don't last that long when they come here every day, they almost disintergrate! It was also really smelly because of the sulphur. We went near the bubbling lake in the centre and you could feel the heat coming off. There were some ruins on the island from an old sulpher factory which was abandoned, the ruins looked quite spooky. It was definately a worthwhile experience.

Nexty.... look a next bloggy .................