Mark Smalley

Friday, 11 Mar - Whitianga
We're picked up from the motel by our car rental company at 1000 and are on the road at 1030 in our little white automatic Toyota Starlet ($35 a day from Quality Car Rentals), heading east to the Coromandel region where family friends have kindly offered to put us up for a couple of nights. Calling in briefly at Thames, our first real stop is at the visitors information at Tairua, where there's supposed to be a good view of the coastline and the surroundings. Friendly Jullie points us in the right direction and asks where we're heading for, in order to offer some suggestions for on our way. I show her our friends address and she says “Oh, I know them!”. Small world.
The view from the top of Paku, after a short drive and a walk up the last couple of hundred meters, lives up to its reputation. Great views all around.
Then it's on to Hot Water Beach just south of Hahei, where at low tide (1450 today, and we're there at 1500) you can dig a hole in the sand and sit in the hot thermal waters, a popular activity. We haven't brought a spade with us but are content to watch others digging and sitting.
Further up the coast we stop shortly at Cathedral Cove a have a little walk around, before leaving to find our friends house past Cooks Beach on the east side of Whitianga, separated by a passenger ferry from the main town area on the other side of the harbour.
Their house - which they have recently built themselves - is situated up a hundred or so steep meters of tight and winding driveway surrounded by plenty of palm trees and other exotic growth. Cleverly designed to catch the sun, electricity supplied by a stream powered generator and enhanced by solar panels, water collected from the roof, unlimited timber for the woodburner, plenty of home grown vegetables, they're very much self-sufficient. A house and lifestyle that most people could only dream of.
They walk us down to the beach and back, we have a lovely meal of mixed salads with NZ Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling followed by local cheeses and biscuits; we discuss wine, family matters, work ethic, travel, religion and world politics.
A glance at a star-filled southern sky without the city glare and we're off to bed, with the prospect of a walk in the bush tomorrow.

posted by Mark Smalley @ 4:41 PM