Waihi Beach to Auckland Thursday 10th Feb

Waihi to Auckland Thursday 10^th Feb 2011





Large Coffee



As we wave goodbye to this sleepy village by the sea side, we head north to Coromandel further along the coast, the day is overcast with a little drizzle.  We meander through high mountain roads to the valleys by the sea as the road twist and turns. “Karen “our trusty GPS again takes us on a scenic route and says that we should turn onto the Forest Road, so being obedient to her we head off the main road and pass several one way road signs as there has been frequent land slip, trees and soil are spewed all over the road. We manage to get our little Daihatsu through these sections and then the road turns to gravel (we should have known) until we come to a locked gate, again we do a u turn and start to head back to the highway. We are stopped by a local woman who advises us that the road is only used by mountain bike riders, and no way could we get through, she directs us back the way we came again passing the land slips mud and heavy rain now falling.

Back on the highway we head for the Coromandel Peninsula and the weather has changed again and is now getting quite warm and the rain stopping. We pass many road works as there had been massive rain storms in the past fortnight and many land slips had occurred, trees uprooted, half the mountain seems to be on the road, big bull dozers were trying to clean up the carnage of the storms, timber trucks RV’s, 4X4s, utes of all sorts are held up along this road, which makes overtaking difficult, but our little racer seems to make it o.k.

Making our lunch stop in Coromandel we walked the street to see how much it had changed since the last time we visited. It was noticeable there were a lot of British tourists roaming the street who all seem to have come by camperwaggons or tourist buses.



Quite Roads



Back on the road again we pass through Thames and onto Highway 1, and back to Jucy Car Rental in Manu Tapu Drive Auckland. The little car did us proud, we did not have an ounce of trouble and we will (if we have to) rent another car from this company. A quick change of clothes and a lift back to the airport check in and then spent time in the Emirates Lounge before we head back to Australia.

This has been a most enjoyable trip, we saw a lot and we did a lot, it is a wonderful place to visit. Next time we will do it on a motorcycle



The roads we travelled