Jan 4, 20236 min read

Up and away to the north

Three kilometres down a worn gravel highway in the Coromandel forest park, sits Riverglen holiday park, our home for the next two nights. Nestled within the trees, next to the Waiwawa River, it was a quiet and peaceful place that blurred the lines between campsite, hostel and community. Some of the caravans expanded into little homes, as if their owners had popped by for a holiday and never left. We hadn’t had the van for long at this point and were quickly finding that avoiding the rule of “2 hours driving equals 2 nights stay” was getting exhausting and it was time to truly relax. We couldn’t have picked a better spot for it, there wasn't really that much to do there but enough to keep up relaxed rather than bored.

Just a two minute walk through the woodland brought us to the Waiwawa River, a shallow slow moving river that had crystal clear freezing water. It was too cold for me to consider swimming but Ben happily took a brief plunge although not without some colourful language. It was perfectly secluded with the only access from the holiday park itself, so we had the small riverside bank to ourselves a perfect place to while away a lazy afternoon reading a book with the only soundtrack coming from nature itself.

Ten minutes away, just down a dirt track off the road is an unnamed waterfall, a small trickling things compare to many we’ve seen but no less beautiful for this. Its waters, like the river were also freezing but somehow Ben managed to convince me to get in this time! I wasn’t in for long, a small dip was all I could do; my shaking limbs convincing me it was time to get out, despite this I’m glad I gave it a go it was definitely invigorating to say the least.

The rest of our time here was taken up with playing cards and pingpong with a fellow backpacker along with a few too many games of bat and ball on the soggy grass. In-between our small excursions, we was still plagued with heavy rain, I’d started to get used to the sound of the rain pinging off our metal roof and although it no longer woke me in the night, it didn’t stop my dreams being filled with visions of us floating away.

As much as we enjoyed Riverglen it was soon time to leave, and for us to get to our next location the easiest route was across the coromandel forest, meaning we had 24 kilometres of gravel roads before we once again joined civilisation. Although it seemed daunting we soon learned that this route wasn’t often frequented so we really could go at any pace that suited us, when any locals popped up in our rearview mirror (because who else would be driving that fast along a pit filled gravel track up a mountain without a safety guard-rail) we would quickly find a spot to let them pass before continuing to trundle onwards. In the end I actually enjoyed this part of the drive… as long as I didn’t think of the steep, deadly, roadside drop hidden by just a few trees we were driving next to.

Our original plan was to stop in Tapu, the first village we would come across on the other side of the coromandel. This changed for a few reasons, firstly we crossed the forest a lot quicker than we expected, secondly Tapu was a small roadside village with hardly any amenities and finally, a storm was rolling in. Instead we headed off to coromandels capital Thames in search of a hardware store so we could start altering the van to our liking.

Thames, the capital of the Coromandel is a fairly small town. It also, with a gold mine on its outskirts and mostly frontier architecture reminded us of a wild west town. We got what we needed from the shops and although the town seemed nice enough we decided to keep on trucking and find a more picturesque camping location instead.

That place was Kaiaua Beach freedom camping spot, a fairly popular little spot on a beautiful bleak pebble beach surrounded by flat meadowland pasture, that was mainly filled with dairy cows. I’m sure it would lose the bleak description if we had visited in sunny weather, but the two nights we spent were more on the stormy wet and wind side of things. We parked nestled between two bushes to shelter us from the wind, a giant statue of an Oystercatcher right outside our window. This might have been a mistake, I no longer dreamt of floating away but of the statue coming to life and peeling our roof off with its unnaturally long red beak and I can confirm that made for a far more disturbing dream .

We again, didn’t get up to much here. A brisk walk along the beach, Ben sacrificing various fishing lures to the sea when they got caught on the rocky seafloor, eating our weight in fried seafood from the local pubs sea food platter. It was here, after a particularly punishing night of heavy rain that we realised that our lovely home wasn’t quite as watertight as we’d believed. Along the back window a small trickle had formed, a small rivulet that ran from outside where it should be to inside where it definitely should not be. Well, crap. More improvements to be made.

With seemingly more and more to be done on the van we decided it was perhaps time to be sensible and earn some money. New Zealand, as beautiful as it is, is not easy on the wallet and these extra expenses were not helping either. Besides, the weather wasn’t looking to improve and we’d rather work while it was wet and windy rather than sightsee. Decision quickly made, it was onto the internet to see what jobs were going nearby(ish) and more importantly, how much they would pay.

All the jobs we applied for were in the Northlands, the aptly named part of New Zealand that is in the north, so that’s where we headed towards next. We joined state highway 1 to zoom our way past Auckland and along new Zealands easiest to drive road - well it’s normally easy to drive but with the wind up it felt like we were being batted around by a particularly sadistic cat. Never the less we eventually made it to our new location and discovered the van could go a lot faster than we initially thought too.

Before arriving at Gulf harbour marina in Whangaparaoa, we decided it was time to get ourselves some decent waterproof jackets so we could actually go explore even when the weather was not so perfect. We managed to find a fairly good deal and as a bonus they had a extra layer we could zip in for the winter too! It was in the carpark after buying our coats that we had the interview for our upcoming job, it all went well and in weeks time we were to become kumara planters.

Our home for the night wasn’t exactly wild but it was a beautiful marina and we’re pretty sure we saw a penguin swimming around when we wandered out at night to admire the vastness of the stars. Now don’t imagine a bold regular penguin, with it’s distinctive black and white tuxedo, but a littler creature whose dusky blue coat slowly blends onto the white of his chest. Little blue penguins are common in New Zealand, although we were very lucky to see one so far north.

On our way out of the marina we got stuck behind a large lorry towing a yacht, in normal circumstances this would have been slightly annoying, happily for us this was more amusing than anything. Somehow the lorry couldn't navigate the roadwork cones and instead mowed right through them. Everyone was in tears of laughter when, realising there was no way to avoid it the driver decided to instead carry on through the cones, occasionally taking them along for the ride. Maybe it was a thing that had to be witnessed to find it funny, but it still makes me chuckle whenever I think of it.

Before we headed off to our next campground we thought we might go and explore for a bit. Where could be better than the nearby, free to enter, Shakespear Regional Park. A beautiful area of rolling hills and panoramic views over the Karepiro bay There was many different walking routes we could have chosen but we decided upon the “lookout route” which took us to the highest viewpoint of the park before trailing down and onto a beach. We didn’t manage to get a look at any of the Kiwis that the park protects, but we did find some really friendly lambs, not as exotic but perhaps cuddlier. Our walk only lasted just over an hour but by the end we were exhausted and more than ready for a cup of tea, luckily we didn’t even have to go anywhere before putting on the kettle.