Clare Teal

Our first week in New Zealand was spent exploring the Coromandel Peninsular a hugely popular holiday destination, full of mountains (well I’d call them mountains) subtropical rain forests and stunning beaches. Driving along the coast road lined with beautiful Pohutukawa (NZ Christmas Trees) to the right and the Firth of Thames to the left all in the glorious sunshine felt a million miles away from the current weather situation in England!  Our first destination was the town of Coromandel, famous for Green Lipped Mussels, which I very much wanted to try.  Our host Aloma and I order a dozen between us and laugh at Mud for ordering boring old salmon.  

Green Lipped Mussels are enormous up to 24cm - 9 1/2 inches and as you’d imagine they’re big business in NZ not only financially but famed also for their health restorative properties, containing a unique combination of fatty acids that supposedly assists in the repair of damaged joint tissues.  Having read so much about them I genuinely assumed I would probably subsist on mussels and beer alone for the duration of our stay.  

Sitting in a broth of chili and white wine (the mussels, not me) I could barely wait to get stuck in. Sadly according to Muddy, after watching me manage only three Perna Canaliculus she wasn’t sure who was greener, me or the mussels.    

Somehow from Coromandel to pretty Whitianga we missed a very large sign “Drive Carefully Penguins Crossing” not that we hit one but it would have been great to see one of New Zealand’s native little Blue Penguins.  Onwards to the stunning Cathedral Cove very aptly named. It was here that our brand new wizzy camera stopped working hmph.

We ended the day at Hot Water Beach.  All the guidebooks say grab a spade, dig a hole and within seconds you’ll be sitting in your own natural thermal spa. We must have dug pools of freezing cold water for at least twenty minutes before a kindly American lady told us that there are in fact only 2 streams of hot water to be tapped into and invited us all into her pool much to the disgust of other bathers.  It seems people can get very territorial over their bits of sand.  Tension was successfully diffused by a woman from York shouting ‘Oh there’s Tom and Margaret from our bed and breakfast - Yooo Hoooo. Small world.