Gumdigger Gully

So, the tour begins! After leaving my Herne Bay home away from home, I once again braved the Auckland bus system with my luggage and met up with the Flying Kiwi tour.

I watched as all the prior tour participants hugged & wished each other farewell. No one seemed ambivalent about their tour completion, so I took that as a good sign that I was in for a fun time.

Sam & Janelle are our guides for the majority of the next 24 days. There are 23 of us starting out on the tour today: Germans, Canadians, Irish, British, Spanish, Bulgarians, Chinese (HK), & Americans compose the group. We all introduced ourselves, added a couple of songs to the bus playlist, and shared our desired superpower.

We headed out to the Coromandel Peninsula and stopped in Tairua for lunch. I surrounded myself with British Isles-dwellers: Aine (Ireland and my seat mate), Hannah, Jaimie, Gwynne, Aaron (U.K.). Our food took the entire hour we were allocated for lunch to make, but even in a ToGo box, it was delicious. 😋

Our first scenic stop was Cathedral Cove (along with a fair amount of other tourists). It was a 30-ish-minute hike down to the beach, but was definitely gorgeous, as you can see from the pics.

Many decided to brave the rough, and fairly chilly waters for a swim. I snuck to some light photography...

Daily Observations:
~ Estimated hiking times on kiwi signs seem fair (take note BC)
~ It’s the 2nd “surprise” hill that kills you
~ My day-packing skills need work
~ From our first encounters, SO GLAD I didn’t choose one of the other hop-on-hop-off bus tours
~ Flock in Tairua has slow lunch service

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