Let's start with the drive. We coached ourselves in the parking lot to drive with New Zealand laws - primarily, staying on the left side of the road. Jessica created helpful mottos, which she continued to repeat for the 7 hour drive: "Take a left, and stay on the left… Left on Left" and "Wide Right coming up". Little did we understand, that was the easy part. The road between Auckland and the Coromandel has two prominent ridges that we must drive over. These ridges are complete with 15 and 25 mph blind turns (speed limit is 55) on a way too small two lane road surrounded by campers and trucks with boat trailers. We quickly realized why all the trucks looked thinner. They are! They have to be! New Zealanders really understand the width of their cars. It would seem that Jason was a bit more fuzzy on the issue. When we were not on the hair raising turns, we were in beautiful pastures, or on weird one-lane bridges. That is right, the two lane road (one in each direction) quickly turns into a 1 lane bridge. Traffic laws provide one direction to have a right of way, which is designated by a sign just before the bridge. Aside from rarely being able to see if cars are coming from the other side of the bridge, the most distorting part of crossing a one lane bridge is the realization that you (as a driver) need to give yourself more room on the left, not the right (as a driver from the US would normally do). While we are still safe from even the slightest scratch, Jessica calmly and quickly suggested that Jason was "cutting it close" on numerous occasions. After 3 days of this kind of driving, we are now feeling much more comfortable. The take away: New Zealanders are excellent drivers!
Our new abode lies ~100 feet off the nearby beach. Between us and the beach lies a simple hike, but a hike nonetheless. This should have given us a suggestion that there would be more to come. The Coromandel is a series of beautiful coves, many of which require hiking. Serious hiking. At the suggestion of a few locals, we called an audible on our first day and went to a beach way off the beaten path. We were told we would have to get there a few hours before low tide and leave a few hours after low tide in order to find the trail and get back dry. We followed instructions to a tee - well as much of them as we remembered. If we followed Jason's instructions, we would probably still be cutting our way through the bush looking for this beach. Instead, Jessica saw some locals walking and we followed them… over a stream… over some rocks… through the bush… over a ridge with a super old forest and finally to a beach called "New Chums". This is where the locals were. They went there in single file just before low tide and we followed them out just after. That is when we realized that good beaches require hiking. We subsequently saw "Cathedral Cove" with a beautiful rock arch simulating a Cathedral (45min hike), "Hot Water Beach" with hot springs just off the beach such that we could dig holes in the sand and sit in fresh spring water (10min hike) and "Crayfish Cove" a mostly rock, completely private party cove (20min hike). We beached it up with the locals for the majority of our time here on the Coromandel - always sure to bring our hiking shoes just in case.
If the locals were not hidden away on some hike-in beach, they were on a boat. In fact, giant beaches across the Coromandel support the local lifestyle of several plots of suburban-like homes, close together. Each plot had a giant garage that would store a boat, and usually a tractor (to pull the boat over sand without getting stuck). Occasionally, we saw boats with built-in wheels and drive trains which locals would drive out of their garages and straight into the water. These locals were built to fish, wake-board and sail. Water and boating was their source of relaxation. The very rich would have massive houses on the edges of these little beach/boat/party towns. The less well off would have small cottages supporting a bathroom, a kitchen and maybe one bedroom, but a yard big enough to put their whole families up in tents. In both situations: the nearby beach was central to all enjoyment.
With all that partying, every town was sure to have at least one restaurant. That restaurant was sure to have two items on the menu, and maybe nothing else: wood-fired pizza and french fries. Of course we dug in. Both were of the highest quality.
Additionally, as you might expect with so much partying done so close to a beach, the sun burns reached a next level extreme. Again, not to be left out, we (especially Jessica) gave our best shot at fitting in.
Finally, between all the beaches were cow pastures and dairy farms cleared of growth of local plants. Apparently, there was a lot of clearing that happened after the English settled in the 1830s and through until a conservation movement starting in the 1980s. Regardless, this created some very interesting plots of land near the coast. Which, as you might expect, spurred no end of discussion on the possibilities of getting a farm on the coast. We realized these plots were at least 5x outside our budget, but that is better than 20x like in California.
One more thought entered our heads as we drove through the local cow pastures: where in the world are all the sheep we heard so much about!?
We will let you know if we solve that mystery in our next stop: the South Island.
Jason & Jessica
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