Day 7 – Week-i-versary

Celebrating our first week on the road! Only many more to come. 🙂

 

Frost just out of Katikati. There was hail left in the ditches, too.

Frost just out of Katikati. There was hail left in the ditches, too.

Since we had a lovely warm bed and a breakfast with home-made lemon curd in the morning, we were able to hit the road at 8am. Looking out for the first time in the morning, we realized how cold it must have been in the night: Everything was frozen. This made for some awesome winter pictures on the road and a couple of stops more to warm up hands and stretch next to the road.

The weather forecast didn’t look too bad so Flo and I decided to face Coromandel one more time. Maybe, after that rainy Christmas in 2012, we could see it in sunshine?

Sunshine was lovely and we made good progress up the east coast of the Coromandel peninsula. In Coromandel town we had lunch at the Driving Creek Cafe which is quite dear to us as it sheltered us in 2012 when we got drenched. This time, we arrived in sunshine. Filling our bellies with nachos and hot peppermint tea, a hail storm started outside. Hail is really unhelpful on the road so we waited it out with another coffee.

The weather coming around as we come close to camp

The weather coming around as we come close to camp

At 3pm, still in rain, we started northwards as we wanted to stay at a DOC campsite at the top of Coromandel. We had a recommendation from Michael for either Stony Bay or Fletcher Bay. Going along and around the coast seemed like the option with a better chance of the sky clearing so we went to Fletcher Bay.

The Coromandel coastline is beautiful. Even in rain and on gravel. The rain stopped before we reached the campsite so we were able to put the tent up dry. We had the whole beach to ourselves, no one else was staying here.