There and Back Again : Beautiful Coromandel

I realize that I usually only write about my weekends, now that is understandable because that is when most of my traveling happens. But my weeks have also had their own little adventures. I have been involved in a church that meets on Wednesday nights, coffee groups, movie nights (mostly because it cost half the price then on weekends) and other random hang outs after a days work. This week involved a nice dinner out, which is something that I don’t do often here because it is very expensive.

Lobke had found a voucher on grabone for a restaurant in Mission Bay where we paid $20 for $40 worth of food for 2 people. So she asked some of us if we would like to join her before she leaves on her travels. So Lobke (Dutch), Simone (German), Wiebke (German) and I happily accepted her invitation. Once we all finished work we were off with hungry tummies!

De Fontein Belgium Beer Cafe is a rather iconic restaurant in Mission Bay, it is a huge pink building on the corner of the only stop light on the main street. Apparently they are known for their mussel pots. I have only ever tried mussels once when we visited Halifax and it wasn’t a good experience so I was a little nervous but game to give ‘em another go. So we sat down and looked at the menu, it took quite some time to decide but it was worth it! Check it out:

It didn’t stop there. We still had about $10 to spend so we got a dessert and coffees. Perfect way to end off a great dinner with amazing company.

And now skip forward to the weekend...

Saturday morning I woke up bright and early to meet 7 other girls in the city and make our way to Coromandel. Coromandel offers an amazing landscape of rolling hills and bright coastal waters. It has become one of my favourite places to visit. In the Coromandel there is a famous walk called the Pinnacles, so we planned to do this but the New Zealand weather got the best of us... On Friday afternoon we got a call from our accommodation that the walk was closed due to a flood. It had rained for 3 days straight during the week so it was understandable but we were all pretty disappointed. It was Lobke’s last weekend in Auckland and so we still wanted to do one last weekend away. She got on the phone and a very helpful women offered us another place to stay with a great walk and (in her opinion) the best beach in all of the Coromandel. We were all on board with the new plan!

So Saturday morning we all meet up and had a good catch up and introductions since this was first time I was meeting half of the girls. We divided into the 2 cars and away we went! We drove about 2 hours through the winding roads through the hills and along the coast and enjoyed the jaw-dropping views.

When we arrived at the camp site we were greeted by a very cheerful owner who had set us up with a cottage of our own! And the best part was that we didn’t have to pay any extra for it! Our money was transferred from our other accommodation and she felt bad that it got cancelled that she just called it even. And to make it even better she gave us a bag of marshmallows to roast that night in our fireplace!

cozy cottage

After unpacking the cars we got changed and ready for a 3 hour hike. It was about 2:30 at this point and we had to get moving if we wanted to make it back before dark, since the sun sets around 5-5:30 now that it is winter. It took us ages to get on the right track but we did eventually. The women had told us that the path had a few river crossings. Wow did we underestimate what a few meant. After the first 20 minutes of walking I think we passed 7 river crossings! And I’m not talking like a trickling stream, it was try to balance and walk across rocks so you didn’t get a soaker rivers! But we got a pretty good system of helping each other as we went. Finally we started to go up hill and left the rivers behind us.

We reached a sign that said look out and we were told that it was a steep 10 minute walk after we saw the sign. But after 10 minutes all we saw was more hill! We eventually got to an open farm area where we saw cows grazing. So we assumed that this was the lookout. We had reached the top just as the sun was setting. It was stunning!

After we stood at the top enjoying the views we nervously started our way down as it started to get darker and darker. Just as we all began to get nervous on the dark paths we were stopped by a young gentleman who had brought us torches. He worked on the trails and knew that we had started the walk. So when we hadn’t returned yet he decided to go and look for us. We were extremely grateful seeing as we only had our phones for light... Was not very smart of us.

We decided to invite him over for dinner for rescuing us. He accepted quite happily. We got back to our cottage and prepared a classic backpacker dinner of pasta and tomato sauce. After dinner we made some hot drinks and made a fire so we could have some dessert: marshmallows! While Lobke cooked us marshmallows we played Heads Up on my phone, which always comes with some good laughs.

classic

playing Heads Up

hmm marshmallows!

Most of us started dozing off so we decided to get ready for bed. Since the fireplace was in the lounge we all pulled our mattresses off the beds and had one big sleepover!

slumber party :)

The next morning we packed all our things up and took a walk on the beach. We were told that the locals have been swimming with a small pod of dolphins in the bay, but unfortunately we did not see them.

breakfast

morning fog

So then we were off to one of my FAVOURITE places on the north island: Cathedral Cove. I have been 2 times already but had no problem going back for a 3rd time. There is just something magical about this place. Since it’s winter now and it was early evening the cove was pretty dead. It was cool to see it like that, seemed a little less touristy.