COROMANDEL PENINSULA

17TH - 21ST MAY

After the previous day’s celebrations and the inevitable late night, we woke up feeling a little rough, and had a discussion over breakfast about whether we should stay in Auckland an extra night to recover. We decided that it would be a waste of the day though, and after a leisurely morning we drove to Thames, the gateway to the Coromandel Peninsula. We called in at a tasty looking bakery for a quick snack, and the only veggie thing they had was an enormous quiche for a bargain two quid!! We had a slice and then kept the rest for tea. We took a trip to the DOC office to pick up the usual walks leaflet, but to our surprise the DOC campsites in the area were a ridiculous $9 each for a site with nothing but a pit toilet. This was more than many of the proper campsites with kitchens and hot showers!! The DOC do a fantastic job, but honestly sometimes their pricing strategy resembles that of Sven’s team selection!! We ended up about 10 miles North of Thames in Tapu, a sleepy
little village with a rather run down looking campsite. It did however have a fantastic location and we parked Bongo right next to the sea under a big tree, from where the sunset was amazing!! We soon discovered why it was so cheap though - you had to pay for everything!! Not just the showers, which is fairly normal, but even the stove and the toaster had coin slots to make them work!!! As a result we just used the oven to heat up the quiche and everything else was cooked on Bongo’s stove under the shelter of the little rear awning - a novelty as it hadn’t been used since Mount Cook!!

The next day Hel woke up with the cold that I’d picked up in Auckland, which I’d still not completely recovered from. Still, at least we had the benefit of really lovely weather. The sun was shining, and it was surprisingly warm after the near freezing conditions we’d been enduring of late!! We drove further