Coromandel Peninsula – Simply Beautiful
Alas, this is my final post from the March 2025 trip to New Zealand, a country that now tops my list of favourite destinations. In the last post Alison and I spent four days in the Art Deco city of Napier where we enjoyed not only the amazing architecture, but great food and wine as well as world class golf at Cape Kidnappers. In this post we’ll head further north to the Coromandel Peninsula (just The Coromandel to Kiwis) where we’ll visit some out of this world beaches, do some snorkelling and take a train ride high up into the tropical forest for spectacular views of the Firth of Thames. It promises to be a blast and I hope you’ll join us.
Here is a map of North Island to give the reader a better idea of where the Coromandel is in relation to Auckland and Napier.
It’s about a four hour drive from Napier to Whitianga where we will be staying on the Coromandel and on the way we pass through the city of Rotorua for a second time. Arriving there around noon, we come upon Patrick’s Pies, surely the mother lode of New Zealand pies.
And for the first time I get the coveted steak and kidney I have been craving since setting foot in this country. I am drooling just looking at the photo.
Our final destination is the town of Whitianga and once again we are indebted to Cheryl Baillie of New Zealand Golf and Wine Tours for suggesting we use it as our base in The Coromandel. It really is a great place with a very laid back atmosphere, good restaurants and well situated in terms of getting to the highlights of the area including Cathedral Cove, Hot Water Beach and more. Here is a map of The Coromandel with Whitianga on the northeast side. Highways 25 and 25A make a complete circumnavigation of the peninsula possible in one day.
Cheryl has us booked into the Oceans 88 Motel which is right on the water and a short walk from the centre of town. During our stay we got the chance to see this white-faced heron every morning stalking prey in the shallows just off the beachfront.
After settling in, we took a walk into town, past the rugby field where both boys and girls teams were practising and checked out a number of restaurants before settling on Blue Ginger where I had this wonderful short soup. WTF is a short soup you might ask? It’s a wonton soup without noodles, while a long soup has noodles. See, this is a very informative website.
Alison wanted some greens and settled on the bang bang chicken salad. Once again, in case you’re wondering, bang bang sauce is a combination of mayo, sweet Thai chili sauce, Sriracha sauce and rice vinegar. Put them all together and the taste is bang bang!
Driving Creek Train
Anyone who follows my musings will know that I am a train nut, having worked as both a crew clerk and then a brakeman before I was lured into law school. I never miss the chance to take a train ride. We have already had one on this trip when we took the TranzAlpine from Christchurch to Arthur’s Pass on South Island. The Driving Creek railway is on a much smaller scale and essentially the vision of one man, Barry Brickell,a New Zealand legend who passed away in 2016. He was a master potter and purchased the land where the railway is located because of its clay deposits. Originally built to bring the clay down from the steep hillsides just outside the town of Coromandel, it is now a tourist train that ascends to a lookout 165 metres (540 feet) above the surrounding countryside.
When Brickell bought the land in 1973 it was not forested and over the next 50+ years he planted thousands of native trees so that this is what it looks like now. If you are wondering how I got this shot from this angle, it is because there are multiple switchbacks and crossovers on the way up including four instances where the engineer has to stop the train and go from the front to the back and take over from there.
There are three tunnels, including this one.
And many, many sculptures and other pottery pieces on both sides of the rail line.
Overall it’s a very pleasant journey to the final destination, Eyefull Tower where you get these phenomenal views of The Coromandel.
And.
Taking this little train is a must-do for anyone visiting The Coromandel. It’s a real feel good experience.
Beaches of The Coromandel
The Coromandel is justly famous for its beaches of which New Chums Beach is on the top of the list in terms of isolation and beauty. The photo above is not New Chums Beach, but rather the beach that leads to the path to New Chums. Most people would be satisfied with this beach as Alison and I were, as the first 100 yards or so of the path to New Chums is over some very slippery and quite treacherous boulders. The last thing we needed was to slip and break a leg or worse on our last full day in New Zeraland.
This is what you will see if you do manage to get to New Chums.
The most famous beach in New Zealand is undoubtedly Hot Water Beach which features both a beautiful beach and a chance to dig your own private hot water pool, or so the hype goes. The reality is a bit more down to earth. Our room at Oceans 88 included small spades specifically to use for the visit to Hot Water Beach and we dutifully took them with us. We parked at the far end of the beach and were greeted with this view.
Once again, an amazing beach with hardly anyone on it. If you look closely you can see that there is group of people about half a kilometre away and we headed toward them.
There’s actually only a very small area where you can dig into the sand and expect it to fill up with hot water from the thermal springs that are just below the surface. The best way to describe it is simply to watch this short video.
Despite what I said in the video I could not resist trying my hand at digging a pool. Actually, I’m lying. This is a pool somebody else dug – it would have taken me days to dig a hole this big.
And guess what – the water was tepid at best.
Cathedral Cove
The other must visit spot on The Coromandel is Cathedral Cove which you can reach by following a path down Hahei Beach which is yet another stunner in its own right. The waters here are part of the Cathedral Cove Marine Reserve and off limits to fishing which means they are teeming with dozens of species of fish and other sea life. Rather than walk to Cathedral Cove we are going to visit it with Cathedral Cove Dive & Snorkel after which we will get in the water for our first snorkelling in New Zealand.
Even though the air temperature in The Coromandel is hot, the waters are chilly and we need to get into wet suits which is always a pain, but worth it.
After being taken in a zodiac pulled by a tractor back to Hahei Beach from the dive shop, we launch and start with a tour of the bay which has some really interesting rock formations including this sea stack.
And this very jagged looking rock formation.
We even managed to have the zodiac take us through this tiny opening with only inches to spare on either side. It was a reminder of our visit to Hole in the Rock on the Bay of Islands at the very beginning of our New Zealand tour.
But the real star of this particular area is definitely Cathedral Cove which has a spectacular beauty that can best be appreciated from the water.
After touring the bay we anchored near one of the islets and spent about 45 minutes snorkelling where we encountered many new to us species. This was life as good as it gets and yet tomorrow it would be over as we had to make the long trek back to Canada.
That night we had dinner at the Blue Lagoon which was a very popular spot with both locals and tourists. The Korean chicken bao was outstanding and yet another example of how New Zealanders have embraced Asian cuisine.
Alison chose Korean chicken as well but sans the bao bun.
This was the view from our rooms at Ocean 88 as we got up on the final morning for the drive from The Coromandel to Auckland airport and a mid-afternoon departure.
New Zealand has been everything we hoped it would be and far more. We shall return.