After breakfast we set off to Whitianga to take the ferry over to the peninsula as there are a couple of nice walks over there which can be done in 2 hours – or so the map says, however having done one and a half of the walks we decided this must be the world record time for completing them rather than the ‘gentle walk’ the lady in tourist information said it was. Anyway we took the ferry over, although it had to fight quite hard against the tide which was rushing out, and started the climb up Whitianga Rock which was quite steep and very muddy but not too bad and from the top you get a wonderful view of Whitianga village. From there we set off for Maramaratotara track which should have taken us straight across to Maramaratotara Bay and we probably should have guessed that it might have been a little more difficult than ‘gentle’ when we started having to hang onto tree branches to get down the track, also the hand written sign saying ‘high tide route’ possibly should have been a clue! All the same we carried one, across the beach and up the other side using more tree roots as we went, I think Chris began to doubt my navigational skills a couple of times but eventually we emerged above the canopy of trees to a spectacular view of the bay. The only problem was that we had to get back down, but this was slightly easier as some of it actually had steps cut into it, although the steps may have been created by a giant as even Chris had a problem in places! In the end after about an hour (or possibly more) we made it to the road and the sign which said that the route we had just taken should have taken 15 minutes (30 minutes return) not the hour one way we had taken. As by this time it was 12.00 we decided to head back to the ferry and the apartment for some lunch rather than continue with the rest of the walk! We rewarded ourselves with an ice cream on the way and got back to the apartment just after 1pm where we had a very nice picnic lunch sitting on the balcony overlooking the sea, luckily it is really sheltered on the balcony so it was nice and warm and calm. After a bit of a relax we set off for Coromandel town which was the main town of the peninsula, unfortunately it has seen better days and I would suggest that Thames, which we drove through yesterday, is bigger. We stopped on the way to Coromandel at a lookout point but as it was at the top of the hill was very windy, so much so it was hard to hold the camera steady! We walked around the town looking at the historic buildings then got back in car and drove as far as we could along the peninsula, there was a bench overlooking the sea so we sat there for a while and had a chat to one of the locals who had a house just down the peninsula with views of both sides of the bay – very nice. By this time it was getting late so we set off back to Whitianga and a drink and some nibbles on the balcony before dinner.
