Colville General Store and Beyond

NickyMy favourite store we’ve been to so far. Friendly people, and a lot of thought and effort has gone into the contents. Some great meals for hikers in here. A whole range of dehydrated Indian dishes and curries. Awesome

Whenever there’s a road walk I offer to go for it and the truth is Cookie always wants to skip it! Haha :D He didn’t fancy all the highways and industrial estates south of Auckland ( he’s more of a mountain guy ) and reckoned Coromandel would have more challenging tracks and more interesting stuff to check out down the coast - snorkeling and kayaking. We’re on a well deserved holiday not a sporting event after all!

CookieAfter a rest day here in Colville we got a ride back to Coromandel, then a ‘naked’ bus over to Hahei on the east coast, to avoid 2 or 3 days of road walking. Every time we break the ‘continuous footsteps’ thing it makes me feel bit uneasy. I like the simplicity of just walking from A to B, but I’m trying to keep things fun and interesting for Nicky who doesn’t quite get the retrospective ‘pleasure from pain’ aspect of walking, yet!
Mon 6th Dec
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Therm-a-rest Surfing!

NickyWe’ve past so many awesome beaches over the weeks but often we’re pushing to get to the next camp or wild spot to set up the tent before dark, so we’ve not been having as much fun in the sea as we should! So today as soon as we arrived in Hahei we pegged it down to the sand :) I’ve been eyeing up the Lilo-ness of our bed mats for some time and after a bit of bobbing about it quickly escalated into a game of International Kings of Surfing! Wahoo! ;) Cookie nailed some big waves first so I had a lot to beat. But with a lucky set of awesome waves I think I covered the most distance. I think points go to Cookie for style, and to me for volume ( of screams )… Roll on the next competition!

CookieWoo hoo! This was brilliant fun, worked much better than I imagined :) I’ve often wondered while fording some of the rivers over here, whether our Therm-a-rest Neoair mattresses would take the weight of our rucksacks and be usable as a makeshift raft? Would mean we could swim across while holding on to the Therm-a-Pack raft, even if it was too deep to ford like the Okura River.

Well them Neoair’s support the weight of me in the water, so I think the answer would definitely be yes! Probably need a bit of structural support by lashing the poles on too, but I think we’re on to a winner, bring on the next big river crossing :D

Nicky Therm-a-Boarding that barrel wave!

Tue 7th Dec
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Cheeky Wine Bag Camouflage

NickyWriting this it’s raining and we’re trapped in the camp site TV room with some screaming teenagers. I forgot how loud they can be! Being a teenager must be like being drunk but all the time… Anyway yesterday was very different! Sun was out and we’d just got to Haihei to chill for the afternoon ready to kakay today. We had a bag of wine stashed in our beach bag and got ourself a spot down the white sand beach, almost the only people there.

And you’ve gotta get the classic feet in the sand shot ;)

Tue 7th Dec
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Hahei Rain Rain Rain

NickyPlay has been seriously rained off here in holiday town Hahei ( pronounced Hah-Hey! ). It’s absolutely whazzing it down. A gray minging day, we had hoped to get down to do some kayaking to get round and see the legendary Cathedral Cove with all that turquoise water and sandy cliff arches you see on the posters. But the wind was up and as we suspected the water looked pretty choppy! The TV room being chocka full of rampaging teenagers, we opted for the safer option… Essentially we were confined to the tent, but it did give us a chance to both polish off that bag of red wine and start the long quest to get 3 stars on every level of Angry Birds ;) So, I think we made the most of a rainy day ;)
CookieStrangely fascinated by the teenage conversations in the TV room today, ranging from the boys convincing the girls that “if they could smell their fart, they were actually eating some of their shit molecules..” to more spiritual matters about taking your shoes off and walking around bare feet, apparently “if you’re having a bad day it’ll ground your negative energy”. My all time favourite part though, was an increasingly heated argument about noise levels (which were getting pretty high) between the original kids and a new group of boys from a different school which was instantly silenced by the simple words - “you from an all-boys school then, must be a lot of Gays there eh?”
Wed 8th Dec
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Cathedral Cove

NickyNext day, seeing as the kayaking was off, and it wasn’t looking like the best weather for sitting in pools of water on Hot Water beach we decided to walk the costal path through the various bays anyway just to say we’d had a look.

A lot of jelly fish washed up on the shores. One every few metres. Clear transparent ones and small bright blue ones… Not sure I fancy the swimming!

CookieThis is actually Stringray Bay on the way round to Cathedral Cove, but a fine spot indeed. Nice to have to beach all to ourselves, round the corner was a bit busy for my liking.
Thu 9th Dec
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Micro Mussels Make A Meal Not

NickyTiny wee mussels here by the thousand. Way too small to eat though :) One day this beach will be prime for harvesting ( except in this marine reserve the fine for fishing or even removing a shell is $250,000 or three months in the clink! )… I can only assume they must be damn tasty eh!

CookieI’d like to point out that no shells were removed or harmed in the taking of this photo! We’ll never get to Bluff if we get banged up for 3 months..

Thu 9th Dec
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Don’t Go into The Light!

NickyAwesome shot Cookie took of me here in the mouth of a long cave down at Mare’s Leg Cove. It was much deeper than it looks here but I just really liked the erie nature of the shot - walking down a long dark tunnel into the mysterious white light… Mmmwwaahahahahaaaarrrrr ;)

Thu 9th Dec
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Don’t go through the arch whatever you do!

NickyDanger! Falling rocks Cookie you’re going to dig me out if it collapses aren’t you? … Bugger it. I’m not swimming round. Go go go! ….

A huge tourist attraction of all the local coast line here is Cathedral Cove because of the arching church-like tunnel between bays. But it seems it’s been collapsing a bit of late and there’s a swathe of health and safety signs nailed around it ( which really accentuates the natural beauty of the area ;) ).

CookieOk, we’re by the coast, there’s bits of cliff face falling down all the time, I think the DOC’s healthy & safety department is getting a bit carried away here. I didn’t mind the half dozen signs on the way here saying “Don’t go through the arch whatever you do!”, but to spoil my photo of the arch, that’s just taking the piss.. The cynic in me think’s it’s just a ploy to get you to hire a kayak by blocking land access to the cove..?
Thu 9th Dec
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The Forbidden Cove

NickyRunning on soft sand - Hot tip: You’ve got to really nail it if you wanna get up to sprinting pace on the deep stuff, especially on a slant. Otherwise it’s pretty easy to end up in moonwalk territory and before you know it you’re further away than when you started ;) Weaving snow shoes from native flax plants is also an option…
CookieI’m sure we’re going to face more imminent danger than this arch while walking across New Zealand, so we legged it through anyhow. To be honest, so did nearly everybody else there!
Thu 9th Dec
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Dam It! ( Gotta get me feet wet )

NickyBeautiful little spot that surprised us along the way today. The cascading water looks a bit on the brown side if you know what I mean… But Cookie assures me this is all totally ‘natural’… That’s my main worry I think ;)
CookieWe caught a cheeky bus to Coroglen to avoid some road walking from Hahei. Then picked up a trail over to the Kauaeranga Valley and then down to Thames. Nice easy going so far, just following a 4×4 track up into the hills.
Fri 10th Dec
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