Coromandel Road Trip

This trip was a bit of a mess to put together. I started at putting together a trip to Coromandel the weekend before this, but then schoolwork took over. Luckily, the tramping club then posted an announcement about a sea cave visit which sounded amazing, checking out penguins. Unluckily it was cancelled a day later due to the number of people interested. That left me with no plans for a beautiful weekend and just two days to find something. After a bit of wrangling round I found that Alex (who was on the Mangawhai trip the week before) was also planning to go to Coromandel, and I join in on his plans.

Which turned out to be about as far along as my own very loose one. Time however, was not on our side, and on Friday evening after scrambling to find more people to join we stood with not enough planning done and terrible weather on Saturday. So, we cut our losses and shortened the plan to just one day (which would end up meaning a LOT of driving). On Saturday we finally managed to nail down our plans: we would start our early in a rental car, drive to Donut Island at the southeastern corner of Coromandel peninsula and go kayaking, then drive up to Cathedral Cove and Hot water beach, before finally returning by the coastal drive and Castle Rock and Waiau Falls if we had the time. And we had a rental booked and found two more people to join us, awesome.

Unfortunately on Sunday morning one of them was feeling sick, and when calling to try and book the kayaks (had disappeared from the website the day before but were instructions to call for same day booking) we found out that the waves and wind were too much. So no kayaks 🤨 But undeterred me, Alex and Simen quickly pivoted to instead drive up the coastal road and go to the waterfall, a Kauri Grove and maybe Castle Rock.

And off we were, with me driving on the wrong (left) side of the road for the first time. It was actually not that bad: we left Auckland early enough that the traffic wasn’t a problem, and actually driving on the left stopped feeling weird very fast. Though I was very happy that I had been navigator on previous trips as that had got me mostly used to going round roundabouts the wrong way. The one thing I did have trouble with though was the indicators, almost every single time I wanted to turn or switch lane I would instead turn on the windscreen wipers 😠

In the beginning it was mostly motorway driving, but after we got out of Auckland proper and turned east towards Coromandel there were just country roads (still called highways though). After a quick stop in Thames for a coffee, we got to the famous Coromandel Coastal Highway. The highway snakes its way just by the waterline, with the right side alternating between cliffs and trees hanging over the road, forming a tunnel. It was a joy to drive, probably one of the first times I’ve really enjoyed driving, with the beautiful scenery, barely any traffic, lots of turns and plenty of stopping points to let the few locals out on the road pass.

About two and a bit hours after we left Auckland, we arrived at Coromandel town and headed up on tiny gravel roads up to Waiau Falls. It is probably the prettiest waterfall I have seen so far on my trip, not due to its grandeur, but due to there being plenty of water in it. We explored round there for a bit, following the river down stream and enjoying the scenery, before then walking the half kilometre over to the nearby Kauri Grove.

Kauri trees are one of the grandest trees in New Zealand, having absolutely massive trunks, living for many thousands of years and literally shaping the environment and soil around them which is why forests with them are usually referred to as Kauri forests even if they are nowhere near the most common tree. However, today they are a rare species due to logging and Kauri dieback, a disease which spreads through soil transfer. And the effort DoC (Department of Conservation) has gone to to try and preserve the Kauri is quite staggering: large swathes of Kauri forest are closed off and the areas you can visit are all equipped with cleaning stations when you enter and exit where you scrub your shoes and then spray them with disinfectant.

So with all this fuss around the Kauri, I was really excited to actually see them up close, and the Kauri grove did not disappoint. A short hike through the forest and then we were greeted by them, absolute giants rising up out of the rest of the forest. Almost 2 meters in diameter, and with a trunk that gets wider as it rises 40 m up to hold up a wide canopy. All in it was really fun to finally see them.

After the Kauri grove, we made our way back to the car through the last of a light drizzle clearing up, and then started on our drive to the east coast of Coromandel. On the way out onto the proper roads, we kept an eye out for the closed entrance up to Castle Rock, but no luck. Seems to have been permanently closed (and we wouldn’t have had time anyway). We continued our drive for a bit before stopping to have lunch at a lookout where we could see the ocean on both sides of the peninsula, a really nice spot and lovely to have my egg and mayo sandwiches.

The driving continued along the top of Coromandel and about an hour later we made it to our next stop. Hot Water Beach is a truly remarkable place, a very nice looking beach with the odd anomaly that 60 degrees water comes up through the sand in hot spots. And at the high tide you can dig yourself a pool in the sand at the edges of these hot spots to get a mix of colder and hot water, and voilà: your own hot spa. It is a huge tourist destination and although this was quite late in the season there was still quite a bit of people, though not as much as I remember from the last time there in 2014. We spent a lovely two hours at Hot Water Beach enjoying the sun, waves and letting some of the driving tension loosen up in the hot water.

Thoroughly relaxed we left Hot Water Beach at about 16:30 and drove the short distance over to Cathedral Cove. There we found that you unfortunately can’t park up by the entrance to the track down to the beach, but have to hike an extra 2km through the small town of Hahei to get there. Not optimal with it already getting quite late and us having to drive all the way back to Auckland. Not deterred we made the maybe 40-minute hike down to Cathedral cove through some beautiful forest landscape and got there as the tide was starting to roll in. A grand tunnel through some 20 meters of sandstone rock with beaches encircled in cliffs on both sides. And out in the water two great carved sandstone rocks balancing precariously above the water

We explored round the beach for a bit, me getting quite wet when I was caught in the waves out on a rock. And then hastily making our way back to the car in the beautiful sunset light to try to get as much of the small road driving done as possible before it became completely dark. By now the driving had stopped being as much fun, and darkness closed fast. Negotiating the winding mountain roads in darkness was not my first choice, but it went well, and we did stop briefly to look at the stars. Then onwards back to Thames where we had a late dinner at 9, after which the roads became straighter and larger. Finally back on the motorway towards Auckland with just a quick fuel stop and after about 6 hours of driving in total we returned the rental at 11 pm that night.

All in all a very fun but exhausting trip. And would probably not recommend doing it in one day. As a first driving experience in New Zealand I’m rather proud how it went, and I enjoyed it most of the way which is not my usual feeling when driving. Finally, I want to draw your attention to the Journey tab up in the top right where you can see where my travels have brought me so far.