Day 9: Rotorua - Taurua

Not being a big fan of lying around in sulphur pools I chose instead to leave Rotorua after breakfast this morning and see what the South Pacific coast had to offer. I did however take a quick look at the sulphur park right across the street from the YHA hostel.

Once again I have to give credit to YHA New Zealand - another clean, friendly, efficient and well appointed hostel.

Not sure what the sulphur does to the ducks in the long term but they seemed to be enjoying it.

Not long after leaving Rotorua you go through a gorgeous gorge then drop down to the coast. Fairly busy roads until you're past the Auckland turn off then it's much quieter as you reach the southern part of the Coromandel peninsula.

I decided to continue all the way to Tairua, tonight's overnight, as I fancied spending the afternoon exploring the coastal roads by bike. Tairua is set in an extensive bay area and is apparently influenced by two tides!

It also has it's own version of Mont St Michel.

After walking around the bay for a while I then got checked in to the backpackers and got out on the bike. There are a couple of very interesting destinations up the coast. The first one is Hot Water Beach. Apparently there's a thermal source way below the sand so if you dig about 30 cms deep then you get access to water at up to 64 degrees! Something to test tomorrow as it wasn't doable to dump the bike and walk across the beach in lycra!

From Hot Water Beach it's a further 8 kms to Cathedral Cove, also on the list of things to do tomorrow as it involves a walk down a path to get to the cove.

Think this was a worthy site for the "panorama of the day".

The views both north and south along the pacific coast were fantastic.

Headed directly home from there, clocking up about 65 kms for the day and a good few metres of climbing as, as always, the coastline is very undulating.

Sadly I didn't see one single sheep today! Amazing. Passed an alpaca farm, which are basically sheep with long necks, but they don't count. A blank day.

You know how it is when you put way too much chili powder in your chick pea chili? Yes, hit the jackpot tonight so the only remedy I could think of involved taking a nice cool beer from the fridge. Cheers!