Waiheke, Tawharanui Park and Coromandel

Hello again from New Zealand. It has been a while since anything was posted but because we live here, there is no sense in posting all of our daily routine....just the exciting stuff.

First up, Waiheke:

We decided to go to Waiheke for the annual Jazz festival. Waiheke is an island just off the coast of Auckland (a 40 min ferry ride). The jazz festival was great, lots of mixed styles of jazz and one of the additional benefits of Waiheke is the wine. Waiheke is a beautiful island with plenty of wineries (I think we counted 40-45 on the map). Unfortunately it rained off and on that day but we did get a few pictures. Before we attended the music venues, we went to a winery about a 10 min walk up from the ferry port. It was the most scenic vineyard I have been to, check out the pictures:

Tawharanui Park:

This is located about an hour and a half north of Auckland from where we live. It was the first time we crossed the bridge to the North Shore and looking at the center of town from the bridge was really cool. You could see the harbour and all of the sail boats with the tall buildings as a background and the tops of the volcanoes spread throughout the city.

Tawharanui is an open sanctuary. There are gates at the entrance to protect the native wildlife from unnatural predators. As you drive up to the gates, they open and you are to make sure they close behind you. As soon as you enter, you can see the cleanliness of the sanctuary and it is quite amazing. The sanctuary is set up to protect the already existing forests and wetlands and also restore them. It also serves as a place for the re-introduction of threatened species; as well as the monitoring of animals and plants. It is nice that such a place allows the public to see it and we thoroughly enjoyed hiking the trails and beach paths. At one point we both commented on how it felt like we were in the movie Jurassic park, as the setting was very similar....with exception of the chunk of time that the little kids behind us hiking with their parents were screaming. Although, maybe if those kids were in the movie, the dinosaurs wouldn't have eaten anyone.

Here are some pictures of our day there, and a brief description:

Little Black Shag

Still the Little Black Shag

Song Thrush

Tui

Bell Bird (When we heard the name of this bird from a fellow bird watching couple we thought they said Bill Bird)

North Island Robin (a rare sight!)

A hungry Tui

Coromandel:

We decided to go to the Coromandel peninsula for a long weekend. We left around lunch on the Saturday and made it to Whitianga (pronounced Phitianga) around 3:00 pm. Our motel was amazing, and right on the water. The rest of the day we walked around the small town and settled at an outdoor
restaurant along the waterfront that had wood oven pizza and a nice little bar. It was a nice way to unwind.

Just outside the hotel

View from the living room window of the hotel

The next day we road our bikes to the fairy. Whitianga sits in the middle of the horseshoe that makes up Mercury Bay. Right beside the town, there is a river that leads all the boats in to the town harbour. You can cross this river to the other side (called ferry landing) and there is a scenic reserve called Shakespeare Cliff. It's a great spot to see Mercury Bay, where Captain James Cook sailed into in the 1700's. It was the first time we have used the bikes to explore somewhere other than Auckland and it was a perfect day.

We then decided to ride back as we wanted to get to Coromandel where the Coromandel Smoking company that everyone at work was mentioning is located. We took the ferry back to Whitianga and drove to Coromandel (about a 55 min drive over/around the mountains). The Smoking Company smokes just about every type of fish you can think of. As soon as you enter the store, you can smell the smoke and your mouth waters. We bought some muscles, scallops, tuna and a variety pack of many different types of fish. It was delicious!!!

Then we met up with Chelsea's work friend who was at Hot Water Beach with a few of his friends. Hot Water Beach was closer to Whitianga so we drove back and then made our way to the beach. It is where an underground river of hot water flows from the earth to surface in the Pacific Ocean (essentially a geothermal spa). You have to go at low tide or else there is no way you would be able to sit on this part of the beach. The idea is that you bring a shovel, dig your own hole, and relax in a hot water spa. We made a few holes that were quite cold, then we took over someone elses hole that was warm, then these people who had been sitting there not saying anything for a while left and we decided to sit in there hole. Turns out they were sitting in the hottest water around and enjoying the view of everyone else being cold. When you find the right spot, the water is very hot and sometimes you need to get the cold ocean water to cool the hole down. It was a fun time and something that is worth seeing when you come to visit.

The next day (my favourite day of the weekend) was the biking day. We checked out of the motel around 10 and took the ferry back over to ferry landing. From here we rode to Cathedral Cove. It was about a 20 km ride there over many large hills (MOUNTAINS as Chelsea calls them). The road was not too busy so it was quite a peaceful ride.

 When we arrived at the Cathedral Cove parking lot, after a "mountainous" hill, we locked up the bikes and began the hike to Cathedral Cove. It was about a 35 minute hike to the cove and well worth it as seen by the pictures.

Ciao for now,
Chris