Coromandel

The Coromandel peninsular is a couple of hours drive north of Rotorua, it’s a beach and forest paradise with the added bonus of some great geothermal stuff.

We ended up at a place called Tairua and the chap at the hotel gave us a bit of a tourist itinerary which turned out great, he even lent us a spade for the beach but more of that later.

As normal the area was just million pound view after million pound view.

We found a small funky winery that uses the feijoa fruit to make cider – sadly I was driving but Carole wasn’t.  Bob and Jen’s tenner liked the brew too.

Great beaches which even got me in the water, swimming is a problem with the shoulder, I can really only manage a pretty pathetic side stroke, but messing about in the waves is still great fun. The rock arches are pretty impressive. One of the beaches ha a snorkel trail where you swim along from buoy to buoy peering at the fish, too far for me but Carole managed it - saw no fish though, just a sea urchin and rocks.

Whilst we were paddling a trip boat came into the bay and stopped to admire the rock arch - the skipper shouted "sting ray behind you" - thought he was joking until we both turned and saw it gliding through the water between us and the beach.

One of the more bizarre things we’ve done is go to Hot Water Beach – between the high and low water marks geothermal hot water bubbles under the sand and if you dig a hole you can make your own thermal pool – the sand does get everywhere though…

Currently in Auckland sorting ourselves out for the flight back to the northern hemisphere and the snows of Vancouver – just seen the news bout huge snowfalls just south of there in the US.  Unpacking the duvet jackets.