Sunrise at Kūaotunu Beach.

A 20 minute drive over a ridge to Opito Bay brought us to 2 more beaches.

The farthest beach is Opito Bay Beach, a wide sandy expanse at low tide.

Halfway back over the ridge you drop down to Otama Beach, with a rope and stick swing at one end, and a rocky headland at the other end.

We moved today to another B&B on the east side of the peninsula, in the tiny village of Kūaotunu (pronounced “koo-ow-t00-noo”). A real beachy town, with a sweeping walkable sand beach and short drives or long walks to neighboring beaches.

The colorfully painted bathroom at the east end of Kuaotunu beach.

The bluffs border the east end of the beach.

You can walk the beach, or up on the small bluff, along the paved sidewalk.

The west side of the beach ends with dramatic rocky outcrops.

A hike in the woods, along a stream! With mining history.

The woods. Hiking under the huge tree ferns, using fallen fronds to cover the muddy areas of track. Enjoying the cool shade and gentle breeze.

The stream. Occasional waterfalls, some obscured by the dense vegetation. The gurgle and splash as the water wears down the hard rock.

The mines. Some at the beginning of the trail gated, others open, but water filled. The miners must have been short!

Road trip! North up the west side of the peninsula to the town of Coromandel, once a hub of the gold mining boom of the 1860’s-70’s that ultimately was abandoned in the 1930’s, east across the  mountainous peninsula on a gravel road to Coroglen, then back west over the mountains on another gravel road! 71.5 miles with a waterfall, Kauri groves, fabulous views and quiet hikes in the forest.

The colorful town of Coromandel. The peninsula was a hippy haven in the 1970’s and has become an upscale vacation home destination for wealthy Kiwis with an environmental conservation ethic.

Waiau Falls, a tranquil stop along remote road 309.

The siamese twin Kauri, two trees that grew together and somehow avoided the logger’s axe and saw.

A lone kauri towering over the forest across a ravine from the road.

‘The square kauri’, estimated to be 1200 years old is just meters from the gravel road. A steep, 187 steps trail leads up to the viewing platform next to the trunk, with the huge canopy another 144 feet up!

We’ve moved to a B&B on the Coromandel Peninsula, the finger of land between the Firth of Thames that lies to the east of Auckland, and the Bay of Plenty to the east of the Coromandel. The Māori name for the peninsula, Te Tara-o-te-Ika-a-Māui, translates to “the barb of Māui’s fish,” referencing a myth where the demigod Māui caught the North Island, from his canoe which is the South Island. The North Island is imagined as a sting ray, with the mouth at the bottom where Wellington is, the tail is the Northland peninsula extending north from Auckland, and the barb being the Coromandel Peninsula. Amazing how the whole island could be imagined from the sky with no ability to fly above it!

Before European contact the peninsula was covered with a huge forest dominated by Kauri, a tree that towered above the forest canopy, with tall, straight trunks absent of branches and suffocating vines. The forest floor was dark under the canopy of many other trees and populated by birds from the chicken sized kiwi to colorful parrots and songbirds. The huge 6 foot tall moa birds and the giant eagle had been exterminated by the Māori generations earlier. Though European & American whalers, sealers and missionaries began colonizing the Bay of Islands area in the early 1800’s, the Coromandel was not seriously settled until the 1820’s when the kauri wood was found to be excellent for woodwoorking, boat building and ship’s masts and spars. Within 80 years logging caused almost the entire kauri forest to be reduced to tiny pockets of surviving trees in virtually inaccessible ravines in the mountainous spine of the peninsula. We visited one of those pockets of trees today.

Due to the current threat of “kauri dieback” disease (caused by a ‘water-mold’ related to another that caused the Irish ‘potato blight’) we are required to wash and disinfect our shoes when entering and leaving the forest, and to stay on the raised boardwalk to avoid touching our shoes to the roots of the trees.

This teen-aged kauri shows the ‘camouflage’ bark that sheds in patches, making it impossible for vines (like the strangler fig) to get a good grip on the trunk.

This massive tree is several hundred years old. Look closely, Robert is sitting on a bench on the deck, giving a perspective of the size these trees can attain, some have been known to be over two thousand years old!