Coromandel, Auckland & The Far North

After the Tongariro Northern Circuit we spent the night in a town called Turangi. The next morning we continued to Taupo, a touristic city in the center of the North Island. We didn't do much there, actually, the main thing we did was visiting a Honey shop, and tasted (for free!) about 10 flavors of honey and a few liqueurs. We felt like Winnie the pooh :) Later we ate a honey ice cream, this time we had to pay for it, but it was worth it (the best ice cream we had in NZ).
From Taupo we continued to Rotorua, another touristic city, famous for its thermal pools around it. We skipped the touristic thermal pools that cost a lot of money and went to see the thermal pools in the middle of the city.














It is quite weird to see a thermal bubbling pool and the city's hospital & buildings right near it. At least we learned why it smells like sulfur everywhere you go...
From Rotorua we drove all the way to Coromandel Peninsula. We went straight to the start of the Pinnacles track. This is a short track (8 hours total, some people walk it in a day) from the car park all the way to the summit of the pinnacles. The climb to the summit included hundreds of wooden stairs at first and than a steep section were you use a metal steps & ladders that are reinforced to the mountain's walls.










































We had great views over the east coast of the peninsula and the mountains around. We spent the night in the Pinnacles hut, which is a huge 80 beds hut, and walked back to the car the next morning.
We then continued to the east coast of the peninsula, to a small town called Hahei, checked in to our hostel (it was actually a room on the first floor in an old couple's house), put on swimsuits and went to the beach. It was the first time we actually swam in the sea. the water was great and the beach wasn't very crowded.




























The next day we went to the "Hot Water Beach" - a beach that underneath it there are thermal rocks. If you dig a hole in a certain place at the beach, the water in it get hot, up to 60C! We were at the beach at 08:00 (low tide was necessary) with a spade we took from the hostel. We deg 4 holes until we found the right spot where the water gets hot.










































All around us people from all ages were digging holes using spades in all sizes, and later sat in their holes.
We returned to the hostel, had breakfast and continued to the Cathedral Cove, a rocky section of a mountain that crossed the coastline, and the sea formed a tunnel through it.














It was quite hot that day, we reached the place sweating (we walked all the way from Hahei). We sat on a remote rock at the beach, opened a pack of cookies and relaxed. The water was clear and beautiful and everything looked very picturesque.



















We left the town on the next morning, just when it started to rain. A few hours later we arrived Auckland, the biggest city in New Zealand. We unpacked our bags in the hostel, printed selling ads for our car and started touring the hostel in the city and put the ads there. Later we got few phone calls. We showed the car to 2 different people, one of them called again few hours later to say he wants the car. That was it, we manage to sell our lovely car in less than 48 hours, in a good price. We sadly said goodbye to the car and happily said hello to the money :)
We had few days until our flight to Australia. We spent a day in an island close to Auckland called Rangitoto, and climbed on the inactive volcano the island is called after. We climbed it pretty quick, took nice pictures of Auckland and took the ferry back.














The next day we hired a car and went to explore the Far North (the region north to Auckland). We drove to a beach town called Paihia. On the next day it was raining so we kept going without doing anything special. We arrived to a nice farm hostel next to a town called Kerikeri. The rain didn't stop so we stayed in the hostel and ate fruits as much as we could (it was free, fresh and tasty). The next day we explored some of the bays around but it was too windy and cloudy to enjoy it.
This is our rented car with a nice view over the Matauri bay:














The next stop was the west coast and the Kauri forest.














The Kauri is a huge tree (can get up to 50m). When you look at one of the trees, it looks like a tree from a fairytale, surrounded by green vegetation, standing high above anything else. It was impossible to take a picture that would demonstrate this sight.
We spent the night in a town called Hellensvile and went on the next day to Te Henga beach. Roi played the guitar and Sarit took photos.
We came back to our hostel in Auckland at the evening. We spent the next day on the streets of Auckland, enjoying our last day in New Zealand. We arrived to the airport at night and spent the night there. Our flight to Australia was very early in the morning.
Good bye New Zealand, we had a great time!

4 hours flight and we landed at Melbourne, Australia. We spent 3 days here so far. On the first we were quite miserable, we hated the city, we hated our hostel and everything seemed to be very very expensive.
The next day we changed hostel and had a great walk in the city's streets & parks, and even got a free chocolate tasting in 3 different chocolate stores.














Tomorrow we're flying to Tasmania. We booked the Overland track there - a 6 days trek, we had too many days without a trek :)