The Coromandel New Zealand Holiday and Travel Guide.

Coromandel Travel and Holiday Guides, North Island New Zealand - touring Cook's Bay, Mercury Bay, Hot Water Beach, Driving Creek Railway, and Thames.

We started our New Zealand holiday by travelling down from Auckland to stay first of all at Thames, which is the gateway town to visiting New Zealand's beautiful Coromandel.
Coromandel - West Coast. The weather was not too good initially - lots of light rain and drizzle around and really low cloud at times, although the temperatures were good during the day. This often poor light stopped us from getting really good photos from around the Coromandel - a shame because the Peninsula is really beautiful. It's worth noting that there are few facilities on the Coromandel - once you leave Colville heading north there are no garages, shops or anything apart from a few campsites and lots of beaches and forest.
Coromandel's East Coast.   As we travelled around the eastern side of The Coromandel we still suffered from low cloud and quite dull weather which affected photo taking. From a facilities point of view there are quite a few beach resorts around the area so you can get food and drink and there are also occasional garages.

Thames - New Zealand. Known as the Gateway to the Coromandel, the once gold mining town of Thames was at one time the second largest city in New Zealand after Auckland. The town was initially built during a gold rush and for a while in 1868 had a population of around 18,000.
Thames is situated alongside the waters of the Firth of Thames with the Waihou River nearbye and the Kauaeranga Valley just inland. There are quite a few shops selling all sorts of things in the town and also a large supermarket - we did not find many proper restaurants though. There is also a large hospital located in the Town.
We found it amazingly quiet particularly in the evening - by evening we mean from about 1800hrs onwards when there was hardly a soul to be seen.
Actually it was so quiet everywhere that you needed to ensure that if you wanted something to eat in the evening you got to wherever by 1930hrs or more than likely you would be refused. This was in early Summer i.e. mid November 2007 so perhaps in full Summer things are different.

 

Coromandel West Coast. Pictures taken on a drive from Thames via Coromandel Town and Port Jackson to Fletcher Bay then Sandy Bay and Port Charles. Note that from Colville northwards the roads are dirt/gravel roads - the surfaces are in very good condition though and it's worth repeating that there are absolutely no facilities after Colville.

 

Coromandel East Coast - Whangamata. Situated on the southeast coast of New Zealand's North Island Coromandel Peninsula, Whangamata is the second largest town on the Peninsula after Thames. There are a huge amount of sports available in the area including swimming, kayaking, sailing and boating as well as of course it's fame as New Zealand's surfing capital.
Although the "normal" population of the town is around 5000 people the population jumps often to over 40,000 in the summer holidays - there are quite a number of restaurants and a variety of accommodation available in the town to cater for this.

 

Wharekawa Harbour - Photos and Short Walk at Opoutere. Take SH25 from Wharekawa and turn right onto Opoutere road - when the road bends sharp left and becomes Ohui Road take the small road on the right which takes you down to a parking and picnic area by the river.
This is a really popular area for picnics and for swimming in the river - also people were enjoying themselves in canoes and kayaks.
This location is actually a conservation area - lots of wildlife including oyster catchers and dotterels around and really nice trees and ferns etc.

 Cross the bridge and there is a map suggesting several walks - all we did was follow one of the paths across the forest to the beach and then turned right and wandered along the sand for a while. There are several paths indicated as you go along the beach which will take you back along the river estuary and then back through the forest to the bridge.

 

Coromandel East - Tairua Harbour and Cooks Beach area.

 

Coroglen to Tapu. If you are driving a circuit from Thames out to the East Coast and having visited the Cook's Beach area you would probably return back to the main highway at Whenuakite. To get back to the West Coast rather than drive the 97kms on the main road you can turn right and just after crossing the river at Coroglen a gravel road on the left takes you through the Coromandel Forest to Tapu on the West Coast. The gravel road is generally well surfaced but you do need to have your dipped headlights on because there is often a lot of dust created. There is some really lovely countryside on this route - loads of ferns and trees especially as you go alongside the Waiwawa River. When you eventually reach the main West Coast road either turn left for Thames or turn right for Coromandel Town.

 

Driving Creek Railway. The narrow gauge railway is located just north of Coromandel Town - take Rings Rd and then go left on Driving Creek Rd to soon reach parking areas. The 2.6km railway track twists and turns and at times they even reverse back a little to take sort of switchbacks as the train climbs steeply up the hillside - it is a really enjoyable trip. The round trip takes about one hour - you get great views as you head up going through forest - the train negotiates two spirals and several tunnels and viaducts on the way before it arrives at the upper terminus where there is a large viewing platform available for great views of the valley and countryside.


Before going on holiday to New Zealand we investigated quite a few websites and other information sources in order to plan some sort of itinerary and many of these indicated that you should pre-book to do various things. In fact and perhaps because we were on holiday in New Zealand's early Summer we generally found this unnecessary however the Driving Creek Railway was heavily booked when we arrived on the off chance of getting seats and apparently this is quite normal especially on weekends. We were fortunate to get our ride as some pre-booked travellers had not turned up - but this looks to be one trip you should always pre-book.

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