We woke this morning to a very grey and gloomy morning, and while we were eating our breakfast on the deck again, the rain came on very heavily. Fortunately, it didn't last and was only drizzling as we loaded the car and checked out, but it remained very grey and miserable. Any photos I took this morning are very dark and gloomy looking.
We had no desire to sightsee in the rain, so we set off for the other side of the Coromandel Peninsula. The road wound again up through the volcanic hills, and we eventually got a view down to Coromandel Town. You can see how angry the weather looks.
The same lookout gave a view over the east coast of the Peninsula, but that did not look any better
The clouds were very grey and forbidding, and the drizzle continued from time to time. We reached the sea at Whitianga, which had an attractive setting and a lot of expensive boats.
From there, many people will visit Hahei Beach and Hot Water Beach, but since we had seen them, we decided to visit Cooks Beach instead. Cooks Beach is a very small and quiet place with a lovely crescent of sand, and as it had stopped raining, we were able to sit at a picnic table to eat our lunch.
Then we set off for beautiful Tairua, where we had stayed before on our tour. By then, the sun was shining from time to time, and everything looked much more cheerful. We stopped to admire the view at a lookout on the way, across the sea to various islands.
We were able to spend some time in Tairua, appreciating the beauty of the place. There are some very expensive houses, especially those on the extraordinary conical hill.
The water in the bay was the most beautiful blue, and there are plenty of expensive boats as well as expensive houses.
After this, we pressed on towards Whangamata. The volcanic landscape really is remarkable, with the crests so sharp and the hillsides so steep, and so many hills all jumbled together. If they weren't so covered in greenery, you could imagine the volcanic activity was very recent - which I suppose, in geological terms, it is.
Whangamata is famous for being a good surfing beach, so we watched people surfing for some time.
The sun was quite hot, the sky and sea a lovely blue, and Paul was quite tempted to go and have a swim. Then we remembered the lack of showers; this beach is set up for people who go back to a nearby home to shower and change, there is no provision for people who have just gone there for the day. So we decided against swimming.
The next stop was Waihi, to see the Goldfields Railway. Unfortunately, we were too late for it today, so we went to look at the Martha gold mine instead. It is the most enormous hole in the ground.
To give you some idea of the scale, the tiny red specs on the far side of my photo are the gigantic lorries and diggers. And I do mean gigantic - this is one of the retired lorries.
Paul wants to know how you get into it. I assume you need some sort of ladder.
There is a walk right round the hole, which takes around an hour. There are boards with the mine history to look at as well as old buildings or bits of machinery. This was the Cornish Pumphouse, which was built in 1903 to pump water out of the original underground mine. Steam machinery powered the pump at that time, and as the information board mentions that the beam was housed at ground level, I assume it was a beam engine.
The pumphouse was retired in 1913, when the steam was replaced by electricity.
We were quite tired after all this, so went to look for somewhere to stay. Finding Waihi rather full of traffic noise, we opted for Waihi Beach, about 11 km away and much quieter.
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