Aaaaaall by myseeeelf

Monday 13th October
So I left Jason ("they call me sticky fingers") H at Raglan (incidentally, we stayed at an awesome YHA, Solscape where we slept in an old train carriage) so he could stay and surf while I took my solo trip up to the Coromandel Peninsula, where I wrongly assumed all the cool stuff would be close to each other. I spent a LOT of time driving, but there were also lots of nice walks along the way. I was primarily going to see Cathedral Cove and the Hot Water Beach, both of which were awesome sauce. The journey is much better described in pictures, as I have run out of synonyms for 'really nice'.

Karanghake Gorge. Suspension bridge!

What lies beneath the suspension bridge

Opoutere Beach.

View of Tairua (or somewhere near there) on the Mt Pahu walk

It was a steep walk. I did take a selfie, but there was sunburn and sweat.

Cathedral Cove!

Sandstoney type rock thing on the beach near Cathedral Cove

Sand and rocks. ooooo...

Rent a shovel for $5 and dig your very own hot pool!

Needless to say, I didn't dig.
I just watched with amusement as the cold sea rolled
in and destroyed the carefully built walls around
other peoples hot pools 

A beach?

A hilariously placed old man. I don't know why this made me laugh.

 After seeing all I had time to see around Coromandel, I stayed the night at a YHA somewhere. Can't remember where. (You are welcome)

Tuesday 14th Oct

Driving towards Auckland, along a super pretty coast. I had a mission today. I had a ski bag to purchase, and a particular beach that was very important to visit before needing to be at the airport for 4pm to return my rental car. I did stop to take a couple of pictures on the drive though.

Looking across to water towards Auckland.

Too pretty. I just can't.

The ski bag thing went fine, I managed to make my way through Auckland without getting lost, having an accident, or going insane, and I eventually made my way to Te Henga, also known as Bethells Beach. In the area is also Lake Wainamu, where there is an enormous black sand dune. This area, and some beaches nearby was where many scenes from Xena: Warrior Princess were shot, and so it was super high on my list of things to see in New Zealand. I'm not even ashamed. It was awesome.

Actually quite a long walk. I wont lie, I wished I had a horse. And a sword.

Someone totally fell down this on tv once

LOOK HOW HAPPY I AM!

Bethells Beach

Um.

 So my last excursion and touristy thing to do on my 15 month trip was running around on a beach pretending to be Xena. So worth it. I then had to wait at the airport for a good few hours before my 11 hr flight to Kuala Lumpur, so that gave me plenty of time to shake the sand out of my shoes and socks

...and to establish early dominance on the few power sources.

And that was that I guess.

Back to Ipswich. Joy.