We had been planning on heading straight from Bay of Islands to Rotorua - having looked at the map, it looked do-able, until we spoke to the YHA manager who laughed us outta town. hence a bit of a detour via the Coromandel, where Aucklanders like to head off on hols.

Amazing twisty-turney coastlineon the way - absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately the same can't be said about our accommodation choice in Coromandel town that night - where we encountered the first of many many many Germans who are all visiting NZ at the moment. This very random girl didn't have the first clue how to cook rice. we sniggered to ourselves, having learnt the fool proof way thanks to the thai cookery course. bad people. we are bad people. he he

Nothing much doing in Coromandel town to be honest - we climbed up to the top of a hill and looked at a view over the harbour and the mussel traps in the evening which was pretty, and poked around in a few arts n' crafts shops in the afternoon. These were a bit too chi chi for fridge magnets, but we eventually tracked one down in the newsagent to add to the fridge magnet collection which is starting to look pretty nifty Sarah Shaw...! Had dinner at the hostel, accompanied by a slightly odd guy who sat himself down for a chat and ended up offering to show us round Napier after 5 minutes. Hope Paul took his number down correctly....

The next day we had a seriously early start - our friend from the night before had recommended this, as we were heading to Rotoura via Cathedral Cove at Hahei and the beautiful coast road scenery. It's a seriously popular spot for tour groups and gets rammed later on in the day. We got there around 8.30am, and there were already a few people heading down, but mainly nutcase joggers, and when we got to the actual beach itself, we had it almost to ourselves which was beautiful. I had a great swim in crystal clear water - bit chillier than the Cairns tropical waters, but no need for a stinger suit - hurrah. The beach was getting steadily busier so we decided to do one. On the way back up the walk, we passed masses of people and were really smug we'd got our arses up early doors.