May 2nd (Coromandel Town to Hahei)

We put the ghost town of Coromandel in our rear-view accompanied by, you guessed it, more rain. The weather was slowly turning our post-Auckland quiet time into an indoor only experience and I think it’s fair to say that no one in New Zealand should be confined to the indoors. Even if our plan was merely to relax in quaint, coastal towns for a week before our trip really took off, was it too much to ask for a little beach time? As we traversed the hilly highways at a mind-numbing 30kph towards Hahei, Kelsey and I began discussing the first of many stipulations for the rest of the trip. This first stipulation was that we’d try to summon everything within ourselves to make the most of any situation, regardless of the weather. We were both still in high spirits at the time, remaining mentally stimulated by the ever changing scenery and physical stimulated by our fantastic home cooked meals. This, however, could only carry us so far so we decided to give the rain a big old middle finger and push forward for Hot Water Beach (an area where underground heating allows one to dig their own hot tub). Well the rain retaliated immediately; the windshield wipers on our rental car become overworked and one of them lost its grip to the rubber casing, causing it to come loose and not clear the water away adequately. Within moments I realized that unless the rain calmed down, I couldn’t drive safely. After being reassured by a phone call to the manager of the rental car company that they’d compensate us if we paid for any repairs, we found a service shop in small town along the highway and got the problem fixed for a mere $6.50 NZD. We finally reached the hostel (which we pretty much had to ourselves) and asked to borrow spades to dig holes at Hot Water Beach. We received the same reaction we’d been getting for the past few days; a double take from us, to the rain, and back again, followed by an awkward silence, followed by a reluctant acceptance. Most locals had a hard time understanding our motivation to do some of the things in our Lonely Planet guidebooks given the current conditions. We bit the bullet and sprinted from the car to the beach amongst the downpour only to find a stream of water that had formed, separating us from our destination. I took a first step into the stream and sunk a little, the second step saw me fall a solid foot and a half, bruising my ankle in the process. It was back to the car after that. Dejected, we decided to follow signs to some hot springs, which, in the spirit of the new promise we made to ourselves, we regarded as the lazy man’s Hot Water Beach. After driving to a dead end we concluded that the sign had been lying to us and that some higher power was mocking our attempts at making the most of the day. The saving grace came on the barefoot drive back to the hostel where the rain paused for a moment allowing us time to check out Cathedral Cove, a rock formation at the end of a beautiful 45 minute coastal walk. This was particularly nice for me as it was a precursor to what I imagine some of the multi-day walks I plan to do will be like. Back at the hostel we decided to do the only truly New Zealand-ish thing we could find available; watch Lord of the Rings. It was a rather lovely ending to an otherwise almost entirely lousy day, although even the DVD skipped enough that I once again wondered if we really had done something to upset the gods of New Zealand weather. Before I have everyone worried that this trip is taking a turn for the worst and that we aren’t having as much fun as we should let me assure you that the next blogs concerning Tauranga and Rotorua amount to a return to form for the trip. I’ll put it in plain English; it feels as though I’ve lived and done more here in a week than I otherwise might have done in a year. I love driving from town to town, sleeping in a new bed every night, and meeting new people every night. I feel guilty buying food from a restaurant because I’m having way too much fun cooking exciting dinners in hostel kitchens each evening. I’m excited that this trip has got me thinking about a new lifestyle for myself, but above all I’m most excited by the fact that after all that pre-trip research, most of which went into the early hours of the morning, I’m liking  New Zealand as much as I hoped I would.