Coromandel

I slept surprisingly well on the self-inflating sleep mat, although the sleeping bag that I brought over from the UK was a bit lightweight, even in the New Zealand summer weather, and I was glad I had borrowed a blanket too.

One thing I noticed though as I woke and got dressed was that I had been bitten by something, either as I slept or during the previous day at the festival. I had several red bite marks, mostly on my legs where I clearly hadn’t applied enough bug spray. It didn’t feel too itchy though so I didn’t bother taking any antihistamine… something that I would later regret.

There were only a few of us camping overnight at the festival, but it didn’t take too long to get all of the tents, gazebos and other festival equipment packed away, fuelled with fresh coffee and sausage and eggs.

I took Ems, Nick and the kids over to Dad and Jo’s to freshen up and repack, then headed back to the festival site to finish loading up the van. We picked up some lunch at a local bakery (some nice pies and pastries) and went back to Hamilton too.

Once we’d all regrouped, refreshed and recharged we also repacked as we were going to be on the road for a week. The forecast for the coming week was looking good, and I had already sorted most of my stuff out so it didn’t take long to get ready.

The road trip began with a journey towards Morrinsville. Apparently a highlight of this particular town is the cow statues, sponsored by local businesses and painted in eye-catching colours. We didn’t stop, but we took a detour along the main street to see how many we could spot. Lots!

From Morrinsville we headed towards Thames. Thames is situated on the south-west of the Coromandel peninsula. Again, we didn’t stop as it was a long journey but Thames looked like an interesting little town with plenty of historic interest.

As we drove further north the road became quieter as we wound around the coast. We stopped for a brief break at Manaia Viewpoint. Looking west you could just about make out the Auckland skyline in the distance.

We were about an hour away from the campsite, and the sun was already starting to go down so we pushed onwards. It was a welcome site to see the signs on the outskirts of Coromandel Town. To reach our campsite at Long Bay you have to go through Coromandel around to Long Bay.

As we arrived we had some good news and bad news:

• Good news: the on-site fish & chips van was still open (just).
• Bad news: somebody else had camped in one of our reserved camping spots.

The owner of the site showed us to where we would be staying and explained the situation with the tent in our spot (apparently they were part of another group but had ignored his instructions about where to camp).

Mich and I had booked a cabin online as I wasn’t too sure about camping - Jo had then called to make sure that they had pitches next to the cabin. As it turns out the cabin was actually two different buildings: a cute little shepherds hut (which Mich called as hers) and a slightly bigger cabin with a fridge and even a TV (I was quite happy to take this). We had 2 pitches next to these cabins which meant that we had a nice little corner of the site, slightly elevated and very private.

First things first; we decided to get some fish and chips before they closed. We actually had the last of their fish so were pretty lucky.

As we ate our supper we contemplated what to do about the tent that was camped in our spot. As we started to set up our own tents the campsite owner came over and we helped him to manually move the (empty) tent belonging to the other group. This gave us plenty of space to set everything up.

It had been a long day: packing away a festival, repacking and travelling for hours, then setting up camp again, but it was really worth it. Long Bay was a great choice to stay; the site is absolutely idylic - right on the seafront.

The sun setting over the bay was a welcome distraction but we managed to get everything set up before it got too dark. We were treated to a glorious display of colours in the sky as the sun went down.

As our eyes adjusted to the darkness I was really amazed to see how many stars could be seen. Being in the southern hemisphere, the outline of the Milky Way was clearly visible. I tried to capture the view with my cameraphone, and wished that I’d read the manual on my “big camera” before I came away!