The Coromandel Peninsula & Napier
And so we'd arrived at our last week in New Zealand for which Mandy (David's sister) was joining us. It had certainly been a long time in the planning so it was fantastic to meet up with her on the other side of the world.
After successfully meeting up at Auckland airport we headed to the Coromandel Peninsula, where the Kiwis themselves go on holiday, or so we'd been reliably informed. A first night stopover in Thames provided little more than a chance for a catch up and a good breakfast before heading to W… on the eastern side of the peninsula. It was pretty easy navigating as there is only one main road here although at almost the only junction along the route we did manage to go in the wrong direction!
Arriving in the beautiful seaside town of W… we found a lovely apartment right on the beach and partook in some serious relaxation time before tucking into the beer and wine we had purchased earlier. It is interesting to note at this point that we have been travelling for around six months and at no time has anyone felt the need to ask us to be quiet, Mandy joins us and within 24 hours we have been asked to keep the noise down. No great surprise really. After an enjoyable evening we went to bed happy listening to the sound of the waves gently breaking on the beach.

Liking it so much we made it only 30km further down the road the next day to Hahei, known for its hot spring beach where you can dig your own hot bath in the sand, but more of that later. An enormous piece of chocolate cake left David in need of a lie down (wuss!) which just meant more enforced book reading time for Mandy and I…it's a hard life sometimes. David recovered from his gastronomic delight and we headed off for another fine beach and some swimming in the sea.
Later that day and picking our time carefully we headed out to the hot water beach just as the tide was going out to find that several thousand other people had had the same idea (ok, so that's a bit of Jeffrey exaggeration, but there were a lot). After trying to find a spot that wasn't too hot we started to dig but soon gave up as the waves came crashing in to fill our 'pool' with cool water. Nice idea, but we decided we didn't really want to sit in the sand after all so headed back to start on the beer. Quite how this attraction makes it into the must do list in NZ was a bit of a mystery to us.
Having made so little progress in terms of distance the previous day we left ourselves a 6 hour drive to get to our pre-booked cottage in Napier. Before we embarked on the journey we walked down to Cathedral Cove which is a magnificent arch created by the sea in the limestone which you can walk through and on either side are the regulation NZ stunning beaches. The walk back up to the car park was pretty warm and it was with some relief that we first tucked into our ice lollies and then retreated to the air conditioned car.
The journey to Napier was pretty uneventful. What awaited us just outside the town was a fine cottage dating back to the 1860's in a generous garden. This was to be our base for the next two nights and it was wonderful and a massive change from most of the places that we have stayed on our trip.
In the evening we headed to the nearby Elephant Hill winery for a fine meal and equally good wine. The winery is very modern and our outside table firstly looked over an infinity pool, then the vineyards and then out over the sea. Pretty amazing.
We liked the whole winery dining experience so much that we visited a neighbouring winery the next day for lunch. Again we enjoyed some fine food and wine this time in a slightly more rustic environment. The afternoon was spent in the glorious sunshine as Mandy made a last ditch attempt to try and narrow the gap between ours and her tan.
Before flying back to Auckland on our final day in NZ, we had time to do the hour long Art Deco guided walk in Napier. Napier is after all (or so it claims) the Art Deco capital of the world. On the tour we were joined by the regulation numbskull Americans which added some unintended comedy to proceedings. The Art Deco buildings were built after a massive earthquake decimated the town in the 1930s. The town looks fantastic and it provided a fitting end to what has been an amazing 5 weeks in New Zealand.
All in all, it was an absolutely fantastic week and we need to say a huge thank you to Mandy for coming out to see us (top effort!) and enabling us to have such a great time while remaining more or less in budget too! (also for lightening our bags significantly!)
Next stop Santiago, Chile, and the start of the final leg of our trip…