To Northland
woke early in the morning and as this was a small room, I would have woken Carolann and my mother if I had stayed in the room, so I decided to take my camera and go for a walk, even though it was still dark outside.
The early rays of the sun were just starting to appear on the horizon when I walked onto the beach, giving an orange glow not only in the distance but also on the water, as if there was a big fire just beyond sight.
Soon there was enough light for the camera to start lying and show a light blue sky even though the sun could not be seen, it showed a mist leaving the river giving the photos an eerie look.
The clouds developed a golden look and the water again looked blue, until the light from the sun coming into view, once again quickened the camera shutter, this again gave the sky an orange look, but now the reflection of the sun on the water was giving an impression of a stairway.
Before long the sun was up, it might have been reluctant at first, wanting to stay in bed, but now it seemed in a hurry as it it were late for class. The low clouds had vanished, the sky was blue, as was the sea, no evidence that only a little while ago it appeared to be no fire.
I returned to our room in time for breakfast and to again pack the car, a never ending job! As we could go no further on this road, we were forced to retrace our route to where we turned off the main road, we did not mind as it also gave us a chance to see the things we missed on the way here because we were late. Places like “Hahei” and “Cathedral Cove” and of course “Hot Water Beach,” this time we did not miss the sign to the beach itself, however what I did not know was that to see and feel the hot water, we needed to be there when it was almost “LOW” tide and unfortunately that was 3 hours ago or in another 9 hours, so the area where you had to dig in the sand was under water!
Disappointed that we could not feel the hot water and not having the time to wait we returned to our car and continued on our way.
It was now some two hours since we had left our hotel and we were looking for a place to have coffee, when we came across “Whitianga,” I thought this was a good place to stop, but we had to leave the road to find a café, and it was then that I asked Carolann if she had left anything at the hotel, (Knowing she had not), she said NO!, but why did I ask now 2 hours after we left?
My comment was to look across the water, it may have taken us 2 hours but I can be back at the hotel in less than 10 minutes if I took the ferry that was just there! I could see where we had been walking the night before, just a short distance from where we were now after all that driving.
We followed the coast north, until we had to cross over the mountains to go to the west coast of the “Coromandel Peninsula” stopping at the top at a lookout named “Maungataururu” where we could see the town of “Coromandel” on the west coast.
We had heard a lot about this small tourist town and were looking forward to exploring it, that was until we saw the local prices, everything was at least 30% more than we had previously seen them, we no longer wanted to stay, and decided to head to Northland!
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