Driving around the Coromandel Peninsula
Forward to Day 6
Back to Day 4
We landed in Auckland at 10am and immediately got our rental car
and began to drive to the Coromandel Peninsula. We were staying in
Whitianga on the east side of the Peninsula for the night. Once we got
to the Peninsula, we drove on a tiny highway right on the edge of the
ocean, and there were many spectacular views. These were both taken at
a park between the highway and ocean.
These pictures were taken at a second spot after the road began to climb into the hills.
We went on a short walk to the Waiau Falls that were on our way.
The first time, we went down the wrong path and ended up at the top of
the waterfall.
We backtracked and found the correct path down to the bottom of the waterfall for these pictures.
Near the Waiau Falls, there was a hike to the top of Castle Rock
(521m). It took us about 30 minutes to hike to the top. The landscape
was bizarre. At the bottom it was mostly pine trees. But near the top,
it became very much like a rainforest and the trees kept dripping on
us. We had hardly any view until we reached the top, but we had a great
view once we got there.
These were some odd looking mushrooms that we found on the way back down.
The incredibly tall trees behind me are very old "kauri" trees,
which live for hundreds of years. This was taken in a grove of kauri
trees which was very fortunately spared the kauri harvesting that
occurred about a hundred years ago, leaving very few left in the area.
Forward to Day 6
Back to Day 4
