We left Tapu and travelled to Coromandel town on Friday. The lady running the hostel lived in St Davids in West Wales for the summer then fly's to New Zealand in December for 6 months to run the hostel, she has not seen a winter for 12 years. On Saturday the local town had their Christmas parade so walked to town to see it, it started 40 minutes late and took all of 3 minutes to go past :-)

Stayed at same site again Saturday and Sunday night as was going to drive to top of the Coromandels on Sunday then do the 6 hour walk across the top. We drove about 20km up a dirt track only to get to the top to find it really misty, with a ranger there advising people not to do the walk, so we just turned around and drove back down the dusty road. Just as we got back onto the tarmac road it began to rain and it did not stop for around 8 hours, then it turned to strong showers. This was a good test for our tent, and it failed, there were loads of drips coming in, but as they seemed to be mostly down one end we moved stuff around and slept in it anyway, although the lady in charge did say we could sleep on the sofas inside it got too bad.

By the morning the rain and the drips had stopped, although there was a puddle on the floor of the tent. Took tent down all wet and stuffed into bag drove about 25km across the island before remembering we had left our cool bag and fridge stuff at the hostel, so had to turn around and drive back for it. Arrived on east coast of the Coromandels today, in Hahi. The weather is really hot and sunny now so hopping to go snorkelling tomorrow (Tuesday) if sea is calm enough.