Vivian: This was our GSE break We have spent Thursday, April 5 until Tuesday, April 10 at Cooks Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula. It takes almost 3 hours to drive here from Auckland and we had new host families at baches close to each other. I am with Graham and Alison Leach for the weekend and for next week. It has been wonderful to rest, and walk on the beach. We have also been with our hosts to Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach (both of which were c...

April 9 - Brook - This morning was slightly ealriler than yesterday. My home hosts were planning on going fishing at precisely 9:30am to catch the tides just right. The waves on the beach were still too large to launch the boat off the beach using their tractor so we had to launch the boat into the estuary using the regular boat launch. This is not an easy as one might think. The mouth of the estuary is becomming more and more clogged with sand from the beach dur...

April 8 - Brook - I think this morning must have been the latest I've slept-in in the last 4 years. I think I've figured out this "rest" thing. After a lovely breakfast I had a nice slow morning. We were planning the afternoon around low-tide and Tuatua gathering. A Tuatua is a New Zealand shell fish that lives just below the sand at the low tide water line. So at low tide 2:30pm today we were all prepared in our "togs" (bathing suits) and buckets in hand we walk...

April 6 - Brook - Today we were able to sleep in, but I couldn't. So I went for an early morning walk down to the beach to check things out. The swell from the night before was still moderate in size. Once I returned home everyone was up for the morning. After breakfast was done my host family Graeme & Linda, Brenda & I decided to go for a walk down the east side of the beach. This morning the beach was littered with all sorts of seaweed that had been r...

April 5 - Brook - Today we said good-bye to our second home stay hosts. Then we started to make our way to Cook's beach with a variety of people. Brenda, Vivian, Becca & Myself all arrived around 1:00pm. The beach was too enticing for us to ignore so off we went exploring. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we just kept walking. The sand beneath our feet and the warmish water was all too inviting. Soon we found ourselves at the end of the beach. We decided to ...