WHITIANGA

We left Piahia on Sunday 24 Feb. I looked at the map saw what I thought was our destination at Whangarei only a couple of hours away so we took a back road through some fairly remote bush and picked up a coastal tourist road where we got back onto bitumen. The scenery was superb. After a while we were back on a major highway. Some Kiwis on our yacht trip in the Bay of Islands were from Whangarei and when they asked me where we were going next and I told them they said, "Why are you staying there, it's not on the coast and isn't really a tourist town, it's NZ's northernmost city." I said the agent worked out our itinerary.

We arrived at Whangarei about lunch time and pulled up to find the name and address of our motel in the bag in the boot. 'Beach Resort Motel' Whitianga it said. "Where the hell's Whitianga," I said to Lib, fumbling for the map, to find Whitianga was 4 or 5 hours drive away on the Coromandel Peninsula well and truly the the other side of Auckland. So we steered our Nissan Tida along the highway and arrived at the town of Whitianga about 5.30pm.

It was obviously a big tourist town with many new buildings in wide streets, an air of prosperity was immediately felt but with relatively few people about, not like Piahia which was busy with tourists from all over the world. The population multiplies in peak season which we had fortunately missed. This time our accommodation was spacious, had excellent cooking facilities and was upstairs with a great view of the bay.

Five minutes by car from Whitianga, a nice spot for lunch

A little further on the road to the next bay

We were here for three nights and two full days exploring the coast and finding so many quiet little bays and white sand beaches. This place is a little piece of paradise. Like the other places we stayed, there were no fly screens on the windows and no aircon. Neither is needed in the north on the coast; it doesn't get too hot and there are few flies if any and mozzies either, and no moths came in at night. You just opened the windows and let the breeze in.

Next bay

There were hot springs on this beach