Day 2 the 309 road, gravel,kauri trees, ferns, waterfalls, waterworks.

Day 2 2nd Jan by Karen
We woke at 6am , 12 hours sleep and no jet lag. I'd originally thought today would be a lazy day feeling pretty bad but instead, full of beans, we started to set up this blog, went to the New World supermarket at the end of the road (no car parking charges, no money in the trundler needed) drove to Bay Carving and booked in for bone carving tomorrow then went driving down the 309 road. This has a warning sign on the end of it, gravel, narrow, winding, take care. It connects just below Whitianga to just below Coromandel town but goes directly across the hills through a nature reserve. The road was at times single track, gravel most of the way and twisted and turned with drops to a river on one side. It was however nowhere near as challenging as the roads we drove on in Crete so we were pretty comfortable. We stopped and hiked through the forest to see Kauri trees, huge straight trees that grow incredibly slowly and are protected. Before entering the forest we had to disinfect our shoes and signs warned us to stay on the track to avoid soil contamination that could kill the trees. It was really beautiful. We were walking through tree ferns in their natural environment, birds singing around us, treading on narrow paths and wooden bridges.

We were lead past lots of Kauri trees

These ones are 600 years old, mere babies as these trees can live for thousands of years but the Coromandel saw extensive logging by miners and the British navy and huge numbers were removed.

The Siamese Kauri, two trees now joined at the base due to lack of space.

link to 360 panorama

After disinfecting our footwear again on the way out we carried on the 309 to Waiau falls, a short 80m off the road.

We scrambled down and crossed the rocks which weren't all completely steady and sometimes slippery. Lots of people were swimming and picnicing. Lovely spot.

By now we were hungry. It was gone midday and breakfast had been 6 hours ago. The biscuits in the car weren't cutting it. We decided to head to the end of the road to the Mussel Kitchen for food before anything else.

This looked a great place to eat but fate was not with us. We arrived to find they had a power outtage and were not taking orders. Into Coromandel town we went to find somewhere else to eat. Yesterday this was a sleepy town with a few cars, easy to park. Today it was hosting the Celtic fair, New Zealand's largest one day fair and there were people and cars everywhere. We found a place on a grass verge to park and walked to the local fish and chip shop. The order was taken quickly enough but the fish took over half an hour to be served just because of the popularity of the place. We sat on the grass by a river to eat our flounders and chips utterly ravenous by now. Luckily the fish portions were generous!

Next stop was back to the 309, past the wild pig farm where pigs wander across the road at will and no sense of fear

 

And on to The Waterworks. Billed as New Zealand's quirkiest theme park this was completely powered by water from a local spring, no electricity and built with whatever recycled materials they could get hold of.

We had so much fun here, turning stuff, twisting things, pulling levers, getting each other wet, riding zip wires, spinners,wheels, and swings. Its so much easier to behave like kids when you don't have kids with you!

We spent almost 3 hours here and then drove back down the narrow, windy 309 to Whitianga. It's so handy having supermarkets at the end of the road. We pulled into the Countdown, picked up salad, free range breaded chicken, beer and chocolate orange cheese cake and headed home to eat and sleep.