From Sydney, we flew to our LAST destination on our big adventure…New Zealand.
We started in Auckland and stayed with a friend of a friend for a few days. We visited the different cute districts and neighborhoods around Auckland, went up to Piha and Kerikeri beaches (which were stunning…reminded us a lot of Hawaii), hiked up to a waterfall and spent time planning for the rest of our time in New Zealand.
(the view over Piha Beach)
(the path to Kerikeri Beach)
(black sparkly sands at Kerikeri Beach)
After that, we drove our rental car (finally had a car to get around and it was wonderful) around the Coromandel Peninsula to Hahei. The drive follows the peninsula along the coast and is really beautiful. It passes through a few very cute towns…our favorite was Coromandel. They are known for their smoked fish and mussels, so we went to the local fish smoking shop and got ourselves the best smoked salmon and garlic smoked mussels...amazing.
(excited to have a car!)
(pretty coastline at Coromandel Peninsula)
(cute Coromandel town and the fish smoking shop)
(best smoked fish,
ever)
We finally made it to Hahei and stayed in a great little hostel there. The area around Hahei is really beautiful...it is lush and tropical and near the coast. There are beautiful plants and flowers and tons of gigantic wild hydrangea bushes everywhere...very pretty.
Nearby Hahei is hot water beach, where you can dig a hole in the sand and it fills up with super hot water from an underground spring and then you sit in it like a hot tub. We went and did that until the tide came in and washed our warm little pool away. We also hiked to Cathedral Cove which is a beautiful secluded (actually, quite touristy...but you still have to hike to it) beach and hung out there, worked on our tans some more, and I immersed myself in Twilight novel #4 (almost finished with the series...so sad!!).
(cathedral cove)
(more of cathedral cove)
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