Rotorua and Coromandel

For the second half of October, we arranged with Howard and Rosalind Zuses to switch Resident Friend positions, so we went to Auckland for a week while they came down here to Wellington. We took an extra four days to get there.

We took a bus to Rotorua on October 17, which was a quite comfortable way to travel and pleasant to be able to see the sights from high up and nap whenever we wanted. It was a cloudy and sometimes rainy day, so we did not get a clear view of the tall mountains, but we did have a good view driving around Lake Taupo, which I also remember from our visit 20 years ago. We had a studio room with kitchenette in Rotorua. The motel had five thermal pools, so we soaked in the spa pool with the water jets, a mineral pool, and the outdoor swimming pool. We then took a walk down to the lake, which has a large population of black swans. We walked over to the Maori Anglican Church on the lakeside, which is a very pretty wooden building. It is most notable for an etched side chapel window of Jesus. Since you are looking out over the lake, it looks like Jesus is walking on the water. It was also the warmest church we’ve been in, since hot water is piped under the floors. After dark, we walked around the grounds of the Museum and Spa. Sunday morning, we walked through the town park, which has many steam vents and hot water and mud pools, as well as rhododendrons. In fact, there are steam vents even in people’s back yards. I liked the little church so much that I went back for the Sunday service, which was quite well attended and is conducted half in Maori and half in English. Ron walked around the Museum grounds to take pictures. We will have to go back to Rotorua, because there is a lot more to see and do.



We picked up a rental car in the late morning and drove north to the Firth of Thames and the little town of Miranda, which has the largest hot mineral water pool in the Sothern Hemisphere! There were lots of families there, picnicking and having a day’s outing. Besides the large pool, there is a smaller, though still good size, hotter soaking pool. We were very content. The other thing Miranda is known for is their shorebird bird sanctuary, so in the morning we drove out there and walked around. Unfortunately, without binoculars, it was hard to know what we were seeing. Next, we headed around the bay to the Coromandel Peninsula, site of gold mining and logging in the nineteenth century. The town of Thames had many picturesque old buildings and the drive further up the coast to the town of Coromandel was very scenic. After lunch we went to Driving Creek Pottery, the studio for one of NZ’s most well known potters, Barry Brickell, which is actually best known for its 3K narrow gauge railway, which the potter also built. Ostensibly it was built to various spots where he digs out his own clay, but mostly he just likes trains. It ends at a 2 story tower high on the hill. They are also doing extensive kauri tree planting. The Coromandel was covered with these massive trees until the settlers cut almost all of them down. They can reach many hundreds of years old with 15 foot diameters. All the current logging is done on pine plantations, because of course, no one wants to wait that long to be able to harvest timber.


We then drove over the hills to the East coast to the town of Hahei and our cabin near the beach. The camp ground and the beach cove reminded us of our favorite spot in Australia, Emerald Beach, except that the temperature was 10 degrees centigrade cooler.

The next morning, we hiked up the beach and the headlands to Cathedral Cove, which has a striking tunnel under a headland and numerous small steep islands in the coves and bays, reminiscent of Cannon Beach, Oregon. The cove was used as a set at the beginning of the Prince Caspian Narnia movie.
Stopping for refreshment at a café in town, we met up with the local parrot named Piaf. We thought it belonged to the other patron whose shoulder it was sitting on, but when he left, it came over to visit with us. It stayed with us on the whole walk back to our cabin until we went by a house where someone was sitting on the porch when it finally decided to fly off. After lunch, we had time to walk to the headland at the other end of the beach, wait out a rain storm in a little cave overhang, and still drive out to Hot Water Beach at low tide. You are supposed to dig a pool in the sand which then fills with hot water. Unfortunately, it is impossible to dig a deep hole in water-filled sand, but there were a lot of people trying. We decided that it was not worth getting all sandy just to sit in four inches of hot water. We stood in various pools instead. It was interesting because one part might be very hot, and just a foot or so over it would be cool. You can also squirm your feet deeper into the sand to get hotter.

We had to leave very early the next morning to return our rental car to Rotorua and pick up a bus to Auckland, arriving about 5 pm. Howard kindly met us at the bus station, and Rosalind had a nice meal, homemade bread, and cookies ready for us at the Quaker Centre. They had a Premises Committee meeting after dinner, so we took a walk up to the top of Mount Eden. The next day we mostly rested, except that Howard took us for a walk around the neighborhood to show us where the grocery store was and such like things. They headed off around 5 pm for a flight to Wellington. I think I will write about our week in Auckland in the next entry, as this one seems about the right length.