Whitianga

Driving in New Zealand is different than at home and it is not only driving on the opposite side of the road but the narrow, winding roads and the speed at which everyone drives them! The video footage above is from the highway that runs from Thames up to Coromandel. I especially enjoy the one lane bridges and the sections of road around blind corners that become single lane. On this same road where large, fully loaded logging trucks along with large motorhomes (driven by other foreigners like us) and all the other vehicles. I am pretty glad we are in a small car and are able to get over as many vehicles are crossing the center line.

The drive to Whitianga was a rainy one and so we missed some of the spectacular views but it started to clear up once we arrived in town. After talking with some locals we found out that the storm that had just passed had been one of the worst for this time of year in about 15 years. Apparently there were lots of mudslides and flooding. In Auckland some large yachts ended up beached.

The next morning was slightly overcast but not windy at all. This might have been good news except that we had arranged to spend the day on a 65 foot sail boat. We still went out but we did more motoring than sailing but still had a great time. No one else ended up booking so we had the boat to ourselves. We toured around and saw Cathedral Cove, did a little ocean swimming and even saw a flying fish.

In the evening we drove over to the Hot Water Beach where on 2 hours either side of low tide you can dig a hole in the sand and it will fill with hot water. Some of the pools were much too hot and we ended up digging a pool in a cooler area and linking it up with some of the hotter pools. It was pretty cool even if there were about 150 people all crammed in a small area!