It’s feast or famine with these posts.
Coromandel feels like a century ago. I’ve lost all concept of time so maybe it was a century ago or maybe it was yesterday. I’m so confused. I’m hurriedly writing this from the South Island on Lake Hawea before wifi becomes scarce again. I feel like we are nearing the end of our stay on NZ, and honestly I wish we could take Jeff back and up around one more time. Although, Jeff may be sick of us by then. (Just a reminder that Jeff is the name of the camper van not some vagabond we met).
Anywhooooo-back to Coromandel…
Our drive up from the Coromandel started form Mercer to Thames. We took a quick break for fish ‘n chips at the Wharf and then drove up the coast with another stop at Waterworks. This place is so weird. There really is nothing else to say, but I will say more. First of all we drove 10 km down a gravel road to get here, which in a normal car is not super great, but in Jeff it’s a whole nothah situation. It was like someone let loose 50 sets of golf clubs in the van while pelting us with pebbles. Secondly, the place is full of trash (or more politely – repurposed items) used for water activities. The kids loved it. Granted they’re pretty odd. They had a ball. And that’s all that matters…and looking at the pics maybe I liked it too.
We spent the night at Whangapoua (wh is pronounced as f). The campsite at Whangapoua was super cute. Simple. Basic. Clean. Small. Quiet. This style of campground is def more my speed than the large ones with lots of bells and whistles. It was a big open area with lots of space to run and kids to hang with. They had a blast playing cops and robbers and jumping on the trampoline…and maybe I did too.
The following day we had a slow, lazy morning with some schoolwork and a run past many cattle farms. There was a lot of trampolining until Ben fell out after a particularly rough session and landed on his shoulder. We still made him make the long trek to New Chums Beach because you don’t need a shoulder to walk. It’s about a 30 minute walk from the first beach through rocky shore and woods. Paula and Luke pretended they were explorers with machetes (spades) slashing their way through the rainforest. We popped out in a cool cove with very few people, played around and then made the trek back. From New Chums we drove south and stopped at Harry’s new favorite place, Warehouse (NZ’s Target), for boogie boards and to Countdown, Harry’s other fave place, for supplies.
I am SO excited you went to Waterworks!! It is one of the quirkiest places we’ve been. I knew your kids would love it 🙂