As we knew we’d be covering some distance today we got up
and ready fairly early, setting off at 08:00. The plan was to make our way down
the east coast and get as close to Coromandel as we could. This was quite a
challenge in the Breezer – which is not very much like its name suggests!
Danny took the first leg of the trip, taking us to Paihia
where we would catch the ferry across to allow us to get to the town of
Russell. We did make a quick stop at a supermarket to get food for tonight just
before we caught the ferry.
Once in Russell we made our way to a lookout point, hoping
to be able to glimpse the Hole in the Rock out at sea but we were too far
inland it would seem. There were lots of day trips out to there but we decided
against this as this wasn’t one of our big things to do in NZ and would’ve just
been a small extra if we’d had the time. We therefore decided to move on and
just plough straight through to Coromandel.
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| Just one of the many great views when driving through this wonderful place |
On the journey, of which Corrie was now the driver, we made
a short stop at Waipu Cove; this place was very nice, as most of NZ seems to
be, and we could’ve stayed a lot longer if we weren’t on such a tight schedule
for the day. We took some pics and stretched our legs for 10 minutes before
moving on again.
We finally made it to Auckland and just seemed to catch a
little of the traffic on our way through; this also showed us that not quite
everywhere in this country is stunning as we were surrounded by highways,
traffic, and road works!
After Auckland we were almost reaching our turn off when we
made a quick stop to allow us to switch drivers. This was only fair after
Corrie had done a good 5 hour stint with her legs almost seizing up due to the
very awkwardly placed foot pedals in the van.
Danny then drove us the rest of the way until we reached a
Campervan place just outside of a town called Miranda. During the trip we had
also decided on cutting out going to Coromandel as it is quite a lot of extra
mileage to just do one minor thing; this also give us more time to get to
Hobbiton and look around tomorrow. We chatted a lot about the route of our NZ
trip and decided to make time for all the things we definitely want to do,
whilst cutting out some of the more minor things that involve travelling out of
our way. If we do find that we have a bit of time near the end of the trip then
we may make it to a couple of the first things we missed out though they
wouldn’t be big losses if we couldn’t get to them.
The campsite is very nice and we decided to make use of
their huge kitchen area to cook tea – fajitas. These were divine and we
polished off the family pack before showering and getting ready for bed.
Oh, we nearly for to mention that we saw a few Pukekos on
our travels today, a native and slightly odd looking bird, blue and orange in
colour. We’ve seen quite a lot of wildlife here already, half of which we have
no idea what it is, including an odd bird, which yesterday, Danny thought was a
penguin at first glance but turns out to be called a Pied Shag.
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