A Week in the Coromandel: Part One (Jan. 24-31)

After the nearly constant traveling of last week, we decided that it would be nice to stay in one spot for awhile – even better to stay there with free room and board. Becky had signed us up for WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) before we left the States, and we were interested in visiting the Coromandel Peninsula, a largely undeveloped area across a body of water, the Firth of Thames, from Auckland.

Over the past week we had been in contact via email with Tony, who lives on a mountainside near Kuaotunu on the Coromandel Peninsula. We had agreed to an arrival date and one week stay. As wwoofers, we would receive free room and board in exchange for four hours of farm work each day. Becky reckons this experience would possibly be her first stint at manual labor ever?

Our alternative host, Tony

We met Tony and his daughter Cheyenne after a harrowing car ride from Auckland. The roads are steep and curvy everywhere in this country, and this drive was no exception. Unfortunately, we hadn’t received directions right to Tony’s house. But your intrepid explorers looked up the street on a map, and we were on our way. Expecting to see some sort of “sign” to lead us the way to Tony’s, we were a bit disappointed when we found none and continued driving far longer than reasonable up a ridiculously uneven and steep dirt and gravel road up the mountain, taking us into a kiwi preserve. Poor Ron, how we abuse you!

Fortunately, we managed to get ourselves turned around and back to the nearest town. Showing that we have skills outside of using the internet, we chatted up some locals and asked for directions. As if to reinforce the fact that Kuaotunu is a rather small town, they knew exactly who we meant when we mentioned we were looking for “Tony”, and asked if we were doing some wwoofing? At least we were probably not the first ones who couldn’t find his house.

Tony lives in a house that he built largely by himself. For power, he uses solar panels and a water wheel when there’s enough of a stream, and he also gets his water right off the mountain. As far as we can tell, he seems to have some vegetable beds (in dire state of neglect), some greenhouses (also neglected), and some sheep and cows (no evidence yet of their likely state of neglect, although the adult sheep were in need of some serious shearing as they looked like pillows running around the paddock). Our accommodation is in a room underneath the house. It’s the most privacy we’ve had in days, and that part is nice. A little rustic, but hey we’re used to it by now.

Tony is an alternative lifestyler who used to work as an electrical technician in the city before quitting his job and buying his 60 acres of land here. He’s lived here for about fifteen years but doesn’t seem to work much as far as we can tell. On our first night he cooked us a dinner of fresh paua and mussels that he and his daughter and a friend had caught that day. The paua in particular were quite tasty, though I couldn’t see paying NZ$50 for them, which seems to be their going retail price.

Paua, yum

On the next several days we fell into a bit of a routine, which was nice. We’d wake up around 8-9 AM, have some breakfast, and start in on our day’s work. Most of our work consisted of odd jobs around the farm: mowing, weeding, picking wildflowers, painting one of Tony’s caravans, washing cars, etc. Not really ‘organic’ work per se, but I didn’t really mind as that’s really more Becky’s thing anyway. Tony’s place really needed a good weeding as his beds appeared to have been neglected for awhile (Tony had gone to visit his girlfriend in Switzerland so was a bit behind).

After work most days, we went to check out a number of the local beaches and sights. New Chums Beach, an isolated beach with cliffs on both sides, was quite nice. Tony told us it was voted the second best beach in all of New Zealand (although he couldn’t recall what had been the best beach). It seems as if we’ve been on a beach vacation for the past three weeks, as we’ve been to the beach most days on this trip! One of these days we’ll have to find something else to do, but with the lovely weather we’ve been having here, might as well live it up while you can.

One of the few cathedrals you'll probably catch us in on this trip

Becky admires Cathedral Rock

Of the local sights, Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach were highlights in our mind. Cathedral Cove, as you can see, really does resemble a cathedral. Hot Water Beach is pretty neat because near low tide you can dig holes in the sand, which fill up with hot water that you can relax in. The only tricky part is finding a good spot for a hole, especially as it’s quite popular with tourists, and most of the spots are either too cold, or too hot, with just a few that are just right...

Andrew never stops working, even at the beach

Enjoying the fruits of Andrew's labors