Cormandel Peninsula

Cormandel Peninsula

Working backwards now...this is my blog from Auckland to the Cormandel Peninsula which came after the Bay of Islands.

I jumped on our mode of transportation which is a back packer bus called the "Stray" and prepared myself for a nice 4-5 hour drive. Our destination was a small town called Hahei (pronounced Ha-hey). Most of the time the scenery on our drives are just stunning. On this route we drove along the coast seeing huge waves crashing against the tall cliffs of the Cormandel. The forests are very lush here, there are palm trees, NZ Christmas trees, ferns, and Kauri trees. The drivers on our bus always love to share their knowledge about the NZ forests. We hear all sorts of facts and comments about the trees and the possums. Possums are a mass problem here in NZ. Drivers are encouraged to deliberately run them over if they see them on the road. They don't like these rodents at all because they eat tons and tons of NZ trees every night. They are slowly killing all the vegetation here. I have yet to see a "live" possums, however I have seen many lying on the road.

We arrived at Hahei in mid afternoon with a plan to go Kayaking as soon as we arrived. Apparently this stretch of ocean kayaking is voted one of the best in NZ. The beach was really pretty in Hahei, but the ocean waves were massive. The guides said that it would still be ok to take us out so we continued on. My English friend Sarah and I were in a double Kayak together. Every other Kayak was nicely balanced with a guy in each boat...which I wish I had for this adventure. Being that the waves were so huge, Sarah and I had to paddle into the wind with all of our strength behind us. The scenery was amazing but most of the time I was concentrating on my paddling speed instead of looking at the beaches. Towards the end of the Kayak trip our guide was concerned that we were lagging to far behind so I attached a guide rope to our Kayak to pull us along. How embarrassing! Once we arrived at our final beach destination on the kayaks the guides treated us with all sorts of coffee drinks (espressos, mochas, lattes, and hot chocolates). This seems to be a common theme in NZ.

The next day we decided to take a walk to Cathedral Cove. It is about a 2 hour brisk walk one way. The walk was amazing once again. The sun was very strong that day so by the time we got to the beach I felt like I had heat exhaustion. Cathedral Cove is a popular stop for tourists on the Cormandel, because of its hole in the rock formations created by powerful waves.

Later that night we visited hot water beach. You can only go during low tide, to have a successful experience. What you do is you dig a hole in the sand to create a barrier to stop the cold water from the ocean. When you reach a certain point in the sand the water is literally boiling hot! It is an out of this world feeling. You can't stand in it for long without burning your self, but it is a really neat thing. Our driver told us this is created by some sort of geothermal stream that runs under neath the beach that creates this phenomenon. There were lots of people on this beach just to see the hot water. So at some points it did seem a little over rated. Then we returned to the hostel that night and cooked and amazing stir fry!