Candice & Trevor's Blog: Our way down the east coast (Dec 2-10)

On the 2nd we left Auckland for the Coromandel Peninsula where we stayed for 2 nights. We visited the tiny town of Tairua to see Trevor's grandparents old home up on the hill, the beach where he played as a child during his visits and the small downtown street where he would pickup his daily kiwi burger.

View from Paku Hill in Tairua

Beach near Trevors grandfathers home in Tirua

We also visited Hot Water Beach that day at low tide and rented a small shovel. We initally started digging near the outside of a group of other people sitting in hot water holes. The hole we were digging was cold but we thought if we dug far enough down the cold hole would fill with hot water. While Trevor dug I took a short wander around to try and find a better spot and came across water coming up in the sand. I burned my feet a bit not realizing the water would be the 64 degrees celcius it was. We ended up digging a hole at the bottom of the beach where the hot spring water would mix with the cold ocean water to make the perfect temperature hole.

Hiking trails short drive from Hot Water Beach

Hot Water Beach

We moved on to Whakatane, Gisborne and Napier for the following couple of nights. It was alot of driving as we took the long scenic coast road the long way around and unfortunatley we didnt have the time to see all that each town had to offer.

Kiwi 360 - Trevors heads poking out the top right

Kiwi vines at Kiwi 360

Views from the drive

Rock slide that people would body board down

Trevor underneath the waterfall

Our last 2 nights on the North Island were spent in Wellington. There we got in a short but lovely visit with Trevor's Aunt & Uncle, Bill and Ngaire. We also got to see Trevor's dads childhood home and elementary school.