Coromandel Peninsula: Take 2

What happens when you go to bed at 8:11PM on a Friday night?

You wake up the next day at 4:23AM and figure it's as good a day as any to hit the road in your new junker, if those two words can be used to describe the same car that is.

You gas up and get out of Auckland before anyone has even gotten up to go go the bathroom, heading south down motorway 2. Suddenly (was it sudden, or did you just open your eyes, your mind?), the sky is aglow with pink light draping the valley below, which is filled with a foggy mist. You stare with the wonder of a small child. This alone was worth the drive.

In Thames (about an hour and a half down the road and the first stop on the Coromandel peninsula), you run into the Saturday market. You buy a bar of natural vanilla soap from a wild-haired woman with one eye that doesn't fixate quite right and one ear that doesn't hear quite right. But she knows about North Dakota from a National Geographic special.

"That's desolate up there. People left everything, even their dishes!" She appears to be looking at you. "Is there just no one up there? Completely desolate?"

You try to explain that it's not that bad or that desolate or that different from the countryside of New Zealand. But your explanation has fallen on deaf ears (literally and figuratively)- she can't get over what she's seen on television. So you move on.

Next, you go through Coromandel, a small historic town on the peninsula.

Further north, you arrive in a little town called Colville and stop in their infamous cafe for a long black and a caramel bar. The town co-op sells organic goods in bulk bins. Not too different than your co-op in Oregon. The hippie lady behind the counter gives you driving directions (you read later that the store is staffed by all women).


You think about joining the Colville Tennis Club, but there doesn't seem to be anyone out to play. So you hop back in your Mazda Carella and continue the drive.

A ways down the road, you stop off to find New Chum's Beach, which was recommended by others you've met in your travels. You want to double check your directions, so you stop at the side of the road where a grey haired man in his early sixties is working on his medium-sized yacht which is hooked up to a rusty tractor spray painted on the side with "STILL JUST(crossed out) MARRIED."

He give you specific directions. "Go to the end of the street. Park on the grass. Follow the beach. Then through rocks for a while. Then you'll find a path. Where are you from?"

"I grew up in North Dakota, but I just moved from Portland, Oregon."

"I lived in California for ten years." He asks you what you are doing in Auckland and all the usual questions.

You think about asking him more questions, but your car is still running and so you are off, but not without him repeating the directions once more for good measure and joking that you could be off for a swim also (though you have not brought your wetsuit, and it might not be all that smart.)

You come upon the first beach. Whangapoua. Grey skies one way, but blue in the direction you are headed. So you head toward the rocks. Another man sixtyish again, with no shoes and strong legs looks at you. "Going to New Chums?"

"Yes." You nod.

He looks at sky. "You'll be alright. It's not gonna rain. You'll have the beach all to yourself. I was just there. It's empty."

So you continue along on in your black flip flops.

Through the ferns you emerge onto your own beach. Your size nine feet make their own way in the sand.

It's just you and Mr. Bird. You wonder if this is what it's like on a deserted island. The only sounds are the waves, the birds, the breeze.

You find your new favorite sea creature. It's not like you have a thing for the color blue or anything, it's just a cool jellyman.

On your way back, you run into five people on their way to New Chum's. You think how perfect your timing was. The last person is an English woman in red.

"Is it worth the walk?" She takes a drag off her cigarrette, which was dangling from her fingertips. You wonder why someone would smoke while trying to manage through the rocks.

"Definitely."

You notice that there is ONE pink rock on the beach. You wonder how there would be only one in so many. But there is. You wonder if it is a special rock. There doesn't seem to be a Jesus face in it or anything, so maybe it's just there for no reason.

You return to your station wagon and wander along down the road, stopping here and there at whatever strikes your fancy.


You see a cool building in the town of Waihi- the pumphouse. A remnant of Martha Gold Mine.

This building was moved 296 meters a few years ago, to more stable ground.

The sweet little man in the information center shows you a cement sample, pointing out all the air gaps and large rocks that lack stablility and strength.

You stop off for a little walk in the Karangahake historic park on the way home.



You see some cows coming out to play. You take some pictures of the farms for your mom to see. There's a flat part of the North Island just south of Auckland. "Flat as a pancake," the guy at "The Garage Sale" store told you.


Aahhh. Now what if you'd not gone to bed at 8:11PM on Friday?