Exploring Coromandel, New Zealand

After a day of mountain biking and enjoying the thermal activity in Rotorua, we headed northwest to stay at a campsite at McLauren Falls. It was one of the best campsites we visited on the North Island! It’s a wonderful little park with several walking trails, great views over a river, and many sheep, ducks and swans roaming about. Also, there were great amenities so it was worth the $10 per person fee. Before leaving in the morning, we stopped by the falls right outside of the park. Above the trickle of water cascading over large rocks were large caution signs. Although you are permitted to climb on the rocks, the signs let you know the water level could rise rapidly. This is because the river is actually diverted to a power plant. An agreement was settled to allow full flow of the river periodically so the damn is opened 24 times a year.

We continued exploring waterfalls by heading to Kaiate Falls outside of Tauranga. We enjoyed a nice little walk along the stream viewing the upper waterfalls before climbing down to the larger fall downstream. The beautiful cove had a rope swing next to the waterfall that swung to a swimming pool below. Will just had to give it a try:

We spent the afternoon driving north on the Coromendal peninsula and stayed at a luxury campsite, RiverGlen, after not finding many options in the area but at least it was only $12 per person and included limited internet!

The next morning we got an early start to visit the popular Cathedral Cove. After a nice 30 minute walk, we arrived to a beautiful small beach surrounded by cliffs, sea caves and a tunnel that lead to an adjacent cove. The water was calm, clear and a wonderful turquoise color but the air was too cool for a swim to be inviting. After exploring the scenery, we relaxed on the beach and enjoyed our morning coffee/tea before the crowds arrived.

From the beach, we drove west across the peninsula and stopped at Castle Rock for a quick hike. It’s a steep tramp but only takes about 30 minutes to reach the peak with 360 degree views. We had a wonderful break and lunch on top with panoramas of either side of the peninsula and even with the land near Auckland in the distance. Will back tracked down the trail and split off to the other peak for a few photos before we headed back down.

We then drove south along the west coast of the peninsula and stopped at the town of Paeroa for the night. On the weekends, the town allows freedom camping in the parking lot of their city council which was perfect timing for us. It felt a little odd sitting in our camping chairs cooking dinner on a street corner but other campers joined us making it feel less unusual.

That night it began to rain and did not let up when we woke the next morning. We moved our car one block to pick up free wifi from the library and saw it was foretasted to rain all day. We dragged our feet all morning but eventually made the short drive to Karangahake Gorge. We had planned to spend the whole day exploring the area which is full of waterfalls, mine ruins, mining train tracks, tunnels, and swing bridges but neither of us were motivated to trek in the rain. We pulled into the Karangahake Gorge parking lot and looked at a map under an awning. We found a short 40 minute loop that was mostly mining tunnels – perfect! We set out in our rain gear to take cover while exploring the tunnels. On the walk there, we started seeing signs that the walk we chose had sections closed due to unstable rock. At that point, we figured we are already wet so we continued on the uncovered trail. Even with the rain, it ended up being a great walk. It was neat to see tunnels through the rocks, remnants of a rail system, and swing bridges. We even had the bonus of finding glow worms in the tunnels!