New Zealand 2013, Coromandel Peninsula – Winding Roads and Endless Hills

Next stop after Auckland was Coromandel Peninsula. We spent roughly a day and a half in total on the peninsula driving around checking out some of the sites. The scenery is beautiful and there are plenty of stunning beaches to visit by hiking trails. A favourite would have to be around the Hahei Beach area, as well as Cathedral Cove.

Some things I learnt during our time at Coromandel Peninsula:

• The roads can be very windy, so it pays to add on additional time to any driving
• When hiking and there is an option to do an extra 40min hike to a fall… don’t do it. Very exhausting if you’ve already hiked for half an hour, and then have to spend another hour and a half hiking back to the car

Summary

• What we did: Roughly a day and half spent driving around Coromandel Peninsula
• Favourite part: Checking out some of the beautiful beaches which are accessible by a half hour hike
• Best Experience: Having a relaxing time driving around beautiful scenery
• Worst Experience: Missing out on seeing at least one particular site we wanted to visit because it was via unsealed roads (which we couldn’t travel on with the hire car). Not particularly terrible – just a bit restrictive
• Must See Attraction: Cathedral Cove, and Hahei Beach – rather beautiful
• Next stop: Rotorua!