This past Saturday, my friends and I rented a car and made our first day trip to Coromandel Peninsula. It was about a three hour drive total. Driving on the left side of the road wasn’t as weird as I expected (though I was just a passenger), but the curvy mountain roads we had to take made me squirm.
Halfway, we stopped in Thames, a small, quaint town. We arrived there no later than 9:30 but the town was lively and awake. The sidewalks were covered with tents and people (none younger than 55 or so, plus grand children) for an outdoor market. They had everything ranging from jewelry, to jelly, to mussel fritters, and books. Nothing in this town was a chain. It didn’t appear to be the fanciest of places, but I really loved its down to earth environment, as well as the mountainous surroundings.
Then we re-focused ourselves back en route towards our next destination, the hot water beaches. Wherever we saw a nice view and shoulder, we pulled aside and got out of the car just to appreciate the landscape a bit better. This freedom is definitely the best part of renting a car to see NZ. As sleepy as cars make me, I didn’t want to close my eyes for a second because the ride itself was absolutely beautiful. We finally arrived at the hot water beaches as it started to rain but that didn’t stop us. Unprepared, we dug with our hands to make a hot pool for us to sit in. The actual water is freezing but when you dig through the shore’s sand, steam comes up and the water is incredibly hot. The science behind it is something geothermal but can’t say I fully know yet. We dug our pool like children and laid their as the rain came down, not caring at all.
After attempting to wash off heaps of sand from my body, we got back in the car and headed towards Cathedral Cove. Our walk down was beautiful and we had the beach to ourselves– that is certainly a perk to being in NZ in “winter.” The sun came out for us and we all just sat back and admired how incredibly beautiful this place was. We spent hours here before getting back in the car to stop at a few more pretty sights then making our way to Paeroa, the home of L&P…the most popular NZ soft drink that my friends are obsessed with. They have multiple, huge L&P bottles throughout the town and signs about it adorn every building. Needless to say, they’re very proud of it. Other than that, there’s not much going on in this town.
When we stopped for gas, we didn’t know what side the gas cap was on and clearly looked like newbies. When my friend got out of the car, a woman said, welcome to NZ!…and the man inside proceeded to laugh at our multiple attempts to “top up”. I think we were the
most exciting thing to come into the town in days, so we didn’t take offense.
It was a fantastic day trip and I can’t wait for our next one! In the mean time, there’s uni to go to, but I don’t mind! I am really enjoying getting to know people in each of my classes and observing the students here versus back home.
Location: Auckland, NZ
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Just like you, I love both going on a road trip and to school. As school is somewhat different from that of Penn State and it’s always interesting to do things that we don’t always get to do!