Wednesday 22nd Feb. Hahei (25℃)

After a great breakfast provided by our hosts, we left our fabulous accommodation quite early as we knew we had a long day of driving in front of us. We had a quick explore of the local coastline and saw many surfers out enjoying some beautiful waves and weather. We had to drive south today, back through Auckland and as the last time we travelled through the main part of Auckland was when we first landed and it was dark, we were quite surprised how big, busy and populated it was. (Auckland’s population is 1.6 million) We managed to get through the main part of the city without any issues and headed for the Southern Coromandel Peninsula and Ranges, stopping at a lovely town called Thames for lunch. As I have said, we have been so lucky as our trip has yet to be impacted badly by the recent cyclone. Today we were unable to go on a major road because it was still out of action due to major slippage and damage. We knew this so we took a longer route all along the coast road, through Coromandel to arrive here. We had the most stunning coastal scenery and only had a few hold ups where the road was only one way for a short distance due to the road being covered in rocks/ debris or the road had collapsed. We still are shaking our heads at the number of huge trees that have just been ripped from the ground by the cyclone and are lying around everywhere. We arrived at our next accommodation “The Good Earth Retreat”, around 4pm and was greeted by our host “Dix”. This accommodation matches its name as it’s out of town very quiet. It is a little “alternative” as is the owner but all the same very comfortable. Dix would be in his 50’s, originally from California and reminds me of an old “Beach Boy”, hippy but in better nick. He was pretty lay-back but happy to help if we needed anything. We have 2 nights here and at the moment it is extremely quiet apart from the night noises of the crickets.