A weekend away on the Coromandel Penninsula

Saturday (20th) morning & we packed up the car for a weekend away on the Corramandal Penninsula chilling out.Torrential rain had been forecast for the weekend so we were well prepared.
It had been drizzling before breakfast, but the sun broke through as we made our way up the coast. We stopped off at several places to take in the views and points of interest.

Most of the places around here have Maori sounding names and settlements attached to them. We stopped at Wharetoa, Whangamata, Onemana,Pauanui & Tairua before stopping off for lunch at Colenso.

After lunch we went to hot water beach, then on to Hahei, Cooks Beach and Shakespere's cliff before Michael dropped us off at the ferry landing for the two minute crossing to  Whitianga, which is where we had booked to stay for the weekend. By contrast, Michael drove the car around the bay before rejoining us some 40 minutes later. By this time, the clouds had gathered and the rain was starting to fall.

We had booked a two bedroom apartment overlooking the Marina in Whakatane which was very nice and cosy and handy for the town centre. We walked it to the restaurant for an evening meal in shirt sleeves, but as we were dining the rains came & the roads were awash . Needless to say we were somewhat wet by the time we got back to the apartment.

On Sunday it was nice and fresh as we walked to Church for 8.30 Mass at St. Patrick's. As you can see from the photographs it was only small, but very nice inside.

After breakfast we headed off out to see some more of the penninsula, calling at Matrangi & Opotiko Bay. The day was interrupted with several showers.

On the Monday morning we left the apartment at Whitianga to head back to Tauranga via Coromandel town & Thames.

Michael pulled up at the town of Paeroa where the iconic drink (to New Zealanders) is produced, for the must have snap.

One final stop before arriving back home was at the town of Waihi to view the old mining shaft and pump house. This has long been abandoned as the favoured method of extracting the gold from the ground in favour of the more economic open cast mining set up which could be viewed from an area by the old shaft. The "hole" being created was HUGE.

All in all a very enjoyable weekend, in spite of the weather.