Coromandel Peninsula! 01/11/16

01/11/16
Today was a day that was filled with quite a lot of driving, but equally a lot of time stopping to admire the incredible views along the coastline.
We had a stop off at some water gardens which were a lovely quiet place to have a break and we really enjoyed the water features and lily ponds as we walked around.
We gained a hang of ducks who followed us for ages, but then we started to feel that they had turned in us as we tried to leave them and they followed us like possessed little ducks. We learnt later that they get fed a lot and are basically pets so this explains it.
The highlight of this place was the walk up to a beautiful waterfall, we could see three of seven and we spent a while here just watching the water and enjoying the moment.
We followed this with tea and a scone at the cafe here and were given some advice as to where else to explore, including the 309 highway which has lots of pigs roaming around and where to get our hands on some nice smoked fish a little way along our route.

Further up in Coromandel we bought some smoked fish on the advice of the man in the cafe. I opted for the same fish Gary had smoked, just with herbs and Rob went for garlic smoked mussels, which were enormous! We enjoyed these with some fresh bread by the camper before setting off again for the campsite.

The views along the way were stunning, lots of seabirds and beautiful beaches/coves with some insanely strange shaped trees that clung to rocks by the sea and the side of the road. I managed to get pretty car sick which wasn't so good, but it made a good excuse to stop to enjoy the views and eventually I decided to drive, pretty much just after the extremely winding, fairly close to the cliff edge, gravel road section began! I have to admit it was quite fun after a while, especially taking the car through a stream, but eventually I was stopped in my tracks by a huge truck. I had no way to get past and had to reverse around a corner, on a narrow road where on side was just cliff edge 😵😭😳😱
I got quite nervous and after nearly steering us towards the edge I decided to give the reign to Rob who did a far better job and we were back on our way.

On arrival at the campsite we were greeted warmly by the site manager and told to pick a spot. It was a beautiful site, right on the beach with the breaking waves visible from the van. the DoC sites might be basic but you don't care when you have views like this. We were joined by the ducks and ducklings after dinner...so cute, they were walking all over our feet lol!
Rob took some lovely photos of the sunset, but forgot how the tide works and almost lost his camera to the sea! And then we grabbed the blanket and snuggled on the beach to watch the sunset before falling to sleep with the sound of the waves...bliss!Read more