Day 02 - Sunday 14th September

Breakfast at the hotel was in the restaurant near the lobby where we had dinner last night. The choice at the buffet was OK but not as extensive as a lot of other hotels.

As we ate our breakfast, the weather outside changed from light showers to heavy driving rain and back again. The wind was quite strong and at one stage the rain was blowing almost horizontally.

We checked out of the hotel at about 10am and headed across the road to the airport erminal. The first stop was the Vodafone booth to ask them about the problems we had last night trying to register with their website. The man at the both showed us an easier way to top up my mini WiFi SIM by using my iPad.

Next we went to the Avis booth. They'd allocated us a grey Holden Cruz that turned out to be a very nice car to drive with a wide range of options and features. Before we left the car park, we spent ages checking out all the buttons on the dashboard and adjusting our seats.

It turned out that it had seat warmers too. By the time we worked out how to turn off the seat warmers, I was getting rather hot.

Our TomTom guided us out of the airport area and then south on the M1 until we turned east towards the Coromandel Peninsula.

The first town on the peninsula that we passed through was Thames. It was a pleasant seaside town but we felt no need to stop and spend any time there.

The road took us along the coat on the west side of the peninsula. When I say close, I mean very very close. The road was right beside the bay. Although it was mostly wide enough for one lane in each direction, there was only inches to spare on the left side of the road - not even even space for a guard rail. We were just above the rocks that were protecting the shore from the pounding waves.

It was a beautiful coastal scene. The road twisted and turned along the headlands and past occasional tiny villages on the other side of the road. Although the posted speed limit was 100km/h, I wasn't comfortable driving faster than about half that most of the time  because I'd prefer to stay on the road rather than ending up in the sea.

Along the way, there were lookouts and bays for slow vehicles. So we had opportunities to stop and take photos.

Eventually the road headed inland up through the hills which gave us more photo opportunities. We followed the windy road to the town of Coromandel where we stopped for lunch.We found a pleasant restaurant that was still serving lunch at 2pm. I had fish and chips and asked the waitress to teach me how to pronunce it in New Zealand.

The road down the other side of the peninsula was even more steep and windy. Luckily the sun had come out when we up on the hills so we could admire the view. Suzy thought it reminded her of the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninula in Ireland where we'd been a couple of years ago.

We reached the Oceanside Motel in Whitianga at about 4pm. Our room was on the second floor and faces out to sea. It is a spacious room with a kitchen and a large terrace.The motel's WiFi reception has a strong signal and the internet connection is fast but the WiFi connection drops out from time to time.

After settling in, we drove into town to the New World supermarket to get some supplies for the next few datys - mainly for breakfast. In the back corner of the store, they had a display case where there selling live mussels.

Alan, the motel owner had suggested the Whitianga Hotel as a good place for dinner and so we decided to take his advice. Pub food was all we needed after a big lunch at Coromandel. I took the opportunity to try a couple of different NZ beers: Speights and Spring Tide. I liked them both. (The barmaid let me sample a few others before I settled on these two).