Moving again

This weekend I suddenly had to move out of the hostel. Some people would not be surprised that hostels can be full in the summer season in Auckland, but I was. I went to the reception Thursday evening to extend my stay, but the hostel was fully booked until Monday. Still unconcerned, I postponed the decision of what other hostel to book to Friday morning when I had to check out. I was sure I could just go around the corner and check into another hostel. But I couldn't. I searched online and found no vacancies in the hostels of Auckland! Some rugby festival was making Auckland a popular place to be, so I decided it would be better if I left the city for the weekend.

Coromandel Town

So I decided to go for a weekend trip to the Coromandel peninsula. I got myself a ferry ticket and a reservation for a hostel in Coromandel town. I packed a small rucksack with only basic necessities and left the rest of my stuff in my suitcase in Auckland. It would stay at the Attic Backpackers hostel until my return on Monday. I had no idea what to see in Coromandel, but I had heard it was a beautiful place to go and sometimes I find it's best not to make plans.

Coromandel is a real western style gold miner's town

Coromandel is a small town that grew large when gold was found in the 1870's. Today tourism and fishing is keeping some life in the area, but you can feel that it used to be a busier place.

The Anchor Lodge is a great place to stay. It has free bikes, a pool and a spa.

There's an old goldmine just 20 meters from the hostel

New friends

Already before boarding the ferry I made my first friend. Dani, a girl from Germany, was also headed for the Anchor Lodge and the same dorm room as it turned out. We arrived late to the small town of Coromandel and had a meal at a restaurant. The blue rimmed mussels I had is a New Zealand specialty and I was very impressed with them.

Hi Dani, have a safe flight home

At the hostel we met Kerstin and after a short talk about plans she agreed to take me with her to a famous Coastal walkway that you have to drive for more than an hour to get to. It was exactly that kind of luck I was hoping for, when I made no plans for my weekend.

Thank you for the ride Kerstin, I hope you had a good time in Whitianga

It's a two hour walk to this lookout and I forgot to bring water

As I came back late in the afternoon Dani introduced me to a new friend from the hostel, Dominik. We went on to plan a day trip for Sunday. We would borrow mountain bikes from the hostel and ride to the Kauri Grove and the Waiau Falls.

Dominik says hi to a pig we met on the road

The Kauri trees are massive. This one is 600 years old.

After walking around in the Kauri Grove for half an hour we went on upwards to find the Waiau Falls. Only I had read the instructions wrong in the brochure, so we had already passed them earlier. The ride to the top of the hill was incredibly hard. We measured it with Dominik's phone on the way down to be almost 200 meters of altitude in less than 3 kilometers of road. On the top we had some of our lunch and checked the map again. Then we went downhill as fast as we dared, using the brakes hard on the gravel road. We finally found the waterfall and finished our lunch sitting on the overhang.

Lunch atop the waterfall

We went below for a swim in the pool

We had a crushing shower

Back on dry land

Feeling refreshed we drove the rest of the way downhill to Coromandel town.

Where the Kiwis live

This weekend felt like my first real nature experience. Rangitoto was nature too, but almost no animals live there. In this unique Kauri forest there was a real chance to meet a Kiwi.

Sure, but where are they?

But the Kiwis are night active, so the chance to see one was pretty slim. I hope that I will one day see a Kiwi in the wild. I wonder if that would make me any more Kiwi myself?