March 21, 2010
“You don’t go out looking for a job dressed like that? On a weekday?” – Jeffrey Lebowski, The Big Lebowski
I am sitting in a car park in Waihi Beach at dusk. The wind alternates between calm and 20 mph gusts. The sun was shining and the beach revelers were enjoying the extra leaflet of low tide. But that was a 2 hours ago. Now the car park is empty except for me and the pesky flies darting in and out of the van tickling my feet and testing my patience as they inch closer and closer to the remains of dinner. I want night to fall so I can go to sleep, but the last few minutes of daylight are precious for reading. They also signify the end of the equinox and with it the days are going to get shorter and colder. Dad used to talk about being sad to see the spring equinox and summer solstice end. He was being melodramatic but I can relate.
Map perception has been playing with my mind. I figured Waihi to be further from Mt. Maunganui but there it was in the not-so distance looming above the crystalline waters and the pencil lines of sun bleached shores. Over the past couple of days I drove up and over the Coromandel. The Coromandel is a stumpy north-pointing peninsula marking the east side of the Hauraki Gulf. By motorway or by ferry, it is only a few hours from Auckland but it couldn’t be further culturally. It isn’t geographically isolated but it certainly acts that way. I have yet to see a library and that is probably deliberate by the locals. This is fishing country. Not go out and catch fish to sell at market country, but fish because it’s the most time consuming activity you can do while drunk and you can do it with friends or alone. The locals come in two varieties: semi-hippies living off the grid or rich Aucklanders retreating to their vacation home ( a “bach” in kiwi-speak) to pretend to be off the grid for a couple of weeks during summer. Like many beach communities, the houses are either really nice or really crappy making it really easy to pigeon-hole the occupants into one of the two aforementioned categories. The coastline is rocky and boulder strewn. In many places hard to access and elsewhere impossible. The cities, nay tows, nay communities, nay gatherings signify the few sandy beaches at the many river deltas. These glorified intersections are typically populated by a fish and chips shop, a convenience store (superette), a general store that doubles as the tourist information center and some signs pointing to the nearest hot spring, boat ramp or camp site. Larger towns toss in a liquor store and a pizza or burger shack that closes at the convenient hour of 4pm. These are not people for whom service is a priority. This is quiet, calm, stripped down, easy living.
Here are the quick highlights of each town. Thames is unremarkable except that it actually has stores and gas stations. The drive North from Thames to Coromandel Town is up a windy motorway on the shear edge of the bay. There are no guard rails and the speed limit is posted as 100kph (~60mph) even though there’s a hairpin turn every 100 yards and the recommended turn speed is 45kph. Coromandel Town is supposedly hippy central. I didn’t notice. There were tons of trinket stores which was a good sign that not stopping was fine. I continued up the coast all the way to Fletcher Bay. High above the bay there is a viewing platform and a hand etched metal plate identifying all of the visible offshore islands and their distances. A large sailboat was working its way down the coast making me jealous. The weather was rough and the drive was over taxing gravel roads so I didn’t stay long. I backtracked to Coromandel Town and then crossed the peninsula to Kuaotunu. I was hoping to camp at Motuha Point or Opito Bay as they were the first sandy beaches I’d seen in the Coromandel but there were a lot of signs prohibiting it.
An hour further south I made camp in a car turnout above Hot Water Beach. Hot Water Beach is a wide sandy bay with a rock outcropping that spills out of the forested hills to the edge of the ocean. At low tide hundreds of tourists from around the world flock to the outcropping and dig holes in the sand revealed by low tide. There is a natural hot spring and any small hole will fill with water upwards of 100 degrees. It’s actually scalding hot in some places so a few well timed ocean surges regulate these temporary hot tubs. Around the peninsula from Hot Water Beach is the beautifully picturesque Hahei Beach and Cathedral Cove. Hahei is another white sand beach, broad and calm, with exceptional views of Mercury Bay and the many islands and rock outcroppings. The sand is coarse and white but flecks of crushed red shells make faint pink contours marking high tides of past. Cathedral Cove is a 5 minute drive up the hill and a 45 minute walk out from Hahei Beach. The Cove is a tourist magnet as it has a giant white sand beach, a 30’ tall natural archway that you can walk through to get to another beach, and is in the middle of an ocean preserve. I met a Russian doctor and her mother and they offered me their spare snorkeling gear for the afternoon. I gladly took them up and the snorkeling was excellent but brief. I did learned that beards do not allow for a water-tight seal on a mask. Camping that night was done in a car park at the beach in the classic Kiwi surf town of Whangamata (Fahn-ga-ma-tah). Supposedly the surf gets epic here but during my 12 hour stay it was barely knee high. Since the surf was weak I took the next day to hike to a waterfall who’s name I cannot remember. It was a peaceful, well groomed 50 minute hike into the Coromandel Forest Park to the waterfall viewing platform. Below the platform was a tight and steep dirt and tree root track down to the base of the falls and frigid pool. I took the opportunity to take cold bath, get my hair wet and enjoy being completely alone in nature. An hour back out of the bush and another hour on the road and that brings me to Waihi Beach.
Other than the isolation, I can’t say that the Coromandel has a lot of appeal to me. It would be fun to sail around the plethora of islands or go on a fishing trip but really I couldn’t even consider living in towns these small. It’s off-putting and makes me feel uncomfortable. The upshot is that during a conversation with Nadia the Russian doctor we spent 5 minutes trying to figure out if it was Saturday, Sunday or Monday. We never did sort it out definitively and to be honest, I don’t mind not knowing what day of the week it is. At my current pace, and given the few plans I have made, it looks like I’ll be on the road for at least another month.
