Out of the farm and into the Coromandel

We left the farm on Tuesday after a doing some mulching and cracking open and eating macadamia nuts for hours. We also met a little frog friend! We stayed in Auckland for a night, where a friend showed us around to the coolest bars where we danced and had such a lovely time. 

Froggy friend

Cracking macadamias. There are approximately a trillion lying ont eh ground under a tree. 

We honed our cracking skills. 

Early morning breakfast at the hostel in Auckland.

 We left early Wednesday morning and now we are doing a whirlwind tour of the Coromandel Peninsula, known for its beautiful scenery, alternative culture, and sweet as beaches. (Why people say “sweet as” here I will never understand. Lif is to shor to finis word.) We started out in Thames, where we stayed at a lovely, quiet hostel (the owner gave us strawberries form the garden!!). There was a street market that day, so Laura bought some jewellery, we got a bag of local peaches, plums, nectarines and apricots, some henna, and some handmade sunscreen that smells like creamsicles. I had a ginormous sandwich at this vegetarian café that Lonely Planet recommends. We checked out some other little hippie food markets and op shops, then took a long walk up the highway to the butterfly and orchid gardens. Despite Laura being very excited about her visit to butterfly land, to her dismay the butterflies harassed her incessantly the whole time she was there. Especially one we named Raggedy Anne. Our theory is that when they get old and ratty and scary, they are going to die and want to lay eggs. This makes them flutter around you like psychopaths. One actually laid an egg on my water bottle, and two on my camera case. It was weird. Nevertheless we had a great time sitting still and willing them to land on us for most of our visit.

Frittata and giant sandwich at Sola Cafe. 

Biggest moth in the world! They rest during the day and are active at night. They only live for 4 days. 

Morpho moth. They usually rest with their wings closed, which makes them very difficult to photograph. 

One landed on Laura's foot! 

On the walk back we found an abandoned mine tunnel. Thames was a gold mining town, and there are lots of plaques talking about them. This one had an unlocked gate, but had a warning sign not to go in it without a guide. I wanted to go in but it was too cold and scary. In town we got some real cheap and real yummy fish and chips.  

Spooky mining tunnel. 

The next morning we made our way north to Coromandel Town. It’s about an hour’s drive along a scenic, twisty and narrow road. We bought a tent off of a German girl who was leaving for America, so we decided to camp tonight. We are staying at the Tui Lodge, which has lots of grass and gardens. They lend out free bikes, so I got a bike (Laura is afraid of biking around cars), and I rode in circles around her on the way into town (our hostel is 800m away). We went to the chai tea house and had fresh juice and smoothies. Then we biked and walked out to Long Bay and had a lovely swim, made a new friend and did some henna tattoos.

Back in Town we had a GIANT mound of miscellaneous seafood and chips (mussels, oysters, clams, squid, fish,and scallops), and then went for hokey pokey ice cream, which is a NZ classic. Our plan is to digest for a while (we found free unlimited internet outside of a café), then go back to the hostel and jump on the trampoline.