Selfie snappers and blowholes

There's one major sight on the Coromandel coast which we didn't see on our first visit to the region just after Christmas. Some 7 to 8 million years ago, volcanic activity led to caves being created. Enlarging through erosion, they formed an archway near the little resort of Hahei. Cathedral Cove is undoubtedly the number one crowdpuller in this most northeast part of North Island, and particularly popular with Germans and Japanese.

On the day we go in March we're under heavy competition from these nationalities for the few remaining parking spaces on the hill above the cove. Motorists are parked all along the double yellow lines leading up to the small carpark. If this had been Germany traffic wardens would be having a field day.  We're actually 60 km from the nearest town, and there's not a single warden in sight. Come to think of it, I've not seen a single traffic warden anywhere so far on this trip round NZ. It makes you wonder why they're not tapping such an obvious source of revenue.

As we set off on the 30-minute walk down to the beach we pass large numbers of walkers huffing and puffing their way back up the hill. It sounds like they're doing this more out of a sense of duty, as if they're simply ticking off another box on the to-do list.

                                  

Cathedral Cove - so named because it looks like the nave of cathedral - is needless to say, teeming with tourists. We've been so used to having beaches almost to ourselves in this country that the sight of all these crowds comes as something of a shock. The archway looks totally different from how it's portrayed on postcards - water flowing through, sun shining, and not one single tourist to be seen. Today it's overcast, the tide's going out, and the archway's full of trippers literally tripping over themselves to snap selfies.

A little further down the beach another attraction awaits. An enormous piece of rock stands sticking up out of the water. It looks like the hind leg of a horse. This too, we learn, is the result of cave formation. Only this time the caves collapsed to form an off-shore stack.

                                  

As we sit on the sand eating our picnic and admiring the stack, about a dozen kayaks suddenly appear in the cove. They queue patiently in a long line, as if lying in wait to ambush the enemy. We watch as they start paddling beach wards, landing one by one. On shore a leader goes around and high fives everyone. He looks like a sports teacher, so I go up and ask if this is a school trip. No, he replies, explaining that his kayaking company runs trips every day round the bay, and these are mostly backpackers. "We let them run around a bit and give them a hot drink, then take them back to Hahei". They're certainly running around, but only ankle deep in the water - just enough for a facebook selfie and to snap shots of each other posing in front of the archway. No one seems interested in swimming.

The New Zealand tourist board has done a great job of marketing Cathedral Cove. Sometimes though large numbers of tourists can spoil the very attraction of the attraction they're visiting. Just as we're leaving this tourist trap we notice a Japanese couple. Actually you can't help notice them. The husband has an enormous selfie stick and is shouting orders at his wife. It sounds a bit like "Oyoyoy!". He's obviously looking for the perfect pose in front of the perfect backdrop. She evidently dislikes being bossed around, because she's replying "Wawawawawa!". That's what it sounds like, at least. We hear them repeating this hostile exchange until we're finally out of earshot halfway up the hill.

The best antidote to somewhere with too many tourists is to go somewhere where there are no tourists at all. The following day we head for Pokohino, accessible only by a 6-km dust track and a half-hour downhill trail. We have this gloriously remote beach all to ourselves the whole afternoon, except for one short moment when an elderly man appears and asks if we've seen a blowhole. We have, but quite by accident, while looking for shells in the rocks along one side of the beach. The archway entrance to the hole is actually quite similar to the one in Cathedral Cove, only much smaller of course - you have to almost bend over double to enter. Grateful that this geological wonder hasn't yet made its way into the guide books, we decide to call it "the no-name blowhole".

 

      Hidden beauty on one of New Zealand's loveliest beaches.
          - thank goodness Lonely Planet knows nothing about it.

Tale of the lost elephant and why kiwi men are so awesomely hands-on

Oputure Beach - unusually cloudy and windy, but so relaxing and peaceful. 

Fast forward to our last week Down Under. We fly from Nelson on South Island to Auckland, then back over to Whangamata on the Coromandel peninsula. This time our friends Vicki and Chris loan us their lovely bach (NZ English for small holiday home, pronounced"batch"), just a few minutes from the beach.

After a day or two just chilling, getting used to our new environs we head off for our favourite beach, some 10 km up the road from Whangamata. Oputure (pronounced Opotchury) is a 4-km surf beach, reached by a short stroll through pine woods. Alternatively, you can reach it by skirting round the river estuary at low tide. Lined by swamps and grasslands, it's a sanctuary for nesting dotterels, one of New Zealand's many beautiful protected birds. We opt for the estuary route. We spend a lovely morning on the edge of a spit, surrounded by dotterels and crab snappers, all pecking around in the sand.

We're just getting back into the car when Matilda announces she hasn't got her favourite elephant. "When did you last see him?", I ask, sounding more detective than dad. Reflecting a moment, Matilda replies "On the beach. I made a house for him". "And when we left, did you take him with you?" I further enquire. "No-oh", she replies, as this were the most obvious thing in the world. "Well that's that then", I say. It's a half-hour walk back to the beach, and besides I'm anxious to get home and have lunch. No way am I going back for a cuddly toy. Seeing Matilda just about to burst into tears, Bea says "Wait. I'll go back and get him". Turning to me, she asks "When's high tide, by the way?" Fortunately I'd been into the Tourist Information first thing that morning to find out. "20.45", I reply, smiling "so plenty time to go home and have lunch first." Playing devil's advocate, I whisper to Bea "Let's just leave the toy there. One less piece of bagage to carry home." Making quite sure Matilda doesn't hear me, I add "We'll call it burial at sea, OK?".

On the way home we agree that Bea will go back to the beach to retrieve the toy, while Matilda and I go along to a "Summer Fete" at the local school. Bea drops us off, and we make a beeline for the giant bouncy waterslide. Like most inflatable kiddy attractions at school fetes in New Zealand, it's free. They make their money, of course, on the barbecue and refreshment stands. Glad to be saving a few dollars I let Matilda ride the slide for a good hour, while, without venturing too far away, I look around at what else is going on. A decorate-your-own cupcake stall catches my eye, and it's not too long before Matilda notices it too. The result of her efforts looks, actually, surprisingly edible.

This is an Area School, that's to say one where you enter at 5 and leave aged 18. It strikes me though that most of the kids running around here are of primary age. I see hardly any in their teens. This takes me back to my own schooldays, when it was no longer cool to be seen at the school summer fete - and certainly not with your parents - after the age of 13. In a tent queuing for "fruit and marshmallow on a stick", I overhear one girl, aged about 10, say to her friend "I've already seen six teachers. Even Mr. Priestley's here". So it's OK to go along as a teacher, at least. Just as I'm changing Matilda out of her swimsuit, and rubbing her dry after the slide rides, Bea reappears. "Look who I found on the beach"' she grins, pulling elephant out from behind her back.

Friends reunited...

Overjoyed to be reunited, Matilda is happy just to spend the next half hour sitting playing with him, while Bea and I enjoy watching "Mr. Whangamata". In a 7-point challenge, contestants have to carry out various tasks which all New Zealand males are supposed to be good at: Change a bike tyre, remember five birthdays, fix a surfboard fin, fillet a fish, and braid a girl's hair. All that successfully completed, the eight competitors have to find a piece of chewing gum in a bowl of cream (using mouth only, of course), and blow it without it popping. We laugh together with the crowds of kids, mums and dads as, at one point, whipped cream and fish fly around everywhere. I can't help wondering how many of these challenges I could manage - probably not even half of them. New Zealand males are definitely more "hands on" than we Europeans. The winner, incidentally, completes all tasks in just 15 minutes.

One of the contestants, it turns out, is Head of English, so I introduce myself, explaining I teach English at colleges in Bavaria. When I mention being interested in teaching in NZ too his eyes light up. "Oh yeah, good on y'er, go for it mate, we're desperate for younger teachers here", adding that the average age of teachers in NZ is currently 58. I feel flattered that he regards me as young, and that I could help reduce this figure a little bit.

Doing the hippy thing in Takaka

There can’t be too many places left in the developed world where almost everyone’s clothing comprises baggy, rainbow-coloured trousers, where barefoot pedestrians outnumber those in shoes, and almost no one seems in any particular hurry to either do anything or go anywhere. Welcome to Takaka, home to New Zealand’s happiest hippy community and our home for the next three weeks. 

We're staying at an organic b&b on the Anatoki River, run by a friendly ex-pat couple who keep goats, Muscovy ducks, chickens (known in NZ as “chucks”), sheep and a loveable old horse, all of which roam some 18 hectares of meadow surrounding the farmstead. David and Fiona’s produce, ranging from large succulent avos to lemons, nashis (Asian pears) is 100% organic, and sells well at the weekly farmers’ market, where local growers team up with the resident hippy population to offer an eclectic mixture of healthy, wholesome food alongside sundry assorted home-made jewellery, healing and palm-reading services.

Eclectic entertainers

The whole atmosphere is vibrant, fun and laidback, although the music the day we visit, I must say, leaves something to be desired. Chewing on tasty apple pie washed down with locally roasted organic coffee, we’re entertained by a motley band of beatniks producing a rather monotonous, hypnotic-like sound. “It’s not always quite so hard on the ears”, laughs Fiona, who’s selling avos at a stall alongside. Fiona’s offering four avos for 2 dollars, which strikes me as akin to charity, considering we’ve each just forked out twice as much just for a frothy hot drink.

Bag a bargain: Fiona's avos - four for just two dollars

Fiona introduces me to Grant Knowles, who runs the market along with the local art gallery. Barefoot, dreadlocked, and draped in shawl and baggy trousers, Grant comes over as the ultimate hippy guru. His straggly ZZ Top-type beard blends beautifully with the phalax symbol-like craftwork he's selling. 

The Knowles clan

Same day as the market we see a “Picnic for all Ages” advertised at “The Lovin’ Gardens”. Billed as the largest communal garden in the southern hemisphere, anyone who wants can rent a small allotment, and sell their produce to the garden, with profits ploughed back into the community. It sounds a great social system but the prices, we notice, are not exactly social – even for NZ standards. Above an honesty box a sign instructs self-service, self-pay customers to “Give more than you take”. Venturing into the crowd, we discover that the picnic is not quite for all ages. Most picnickers look like they’re stuck in a 60’s-style time warp, somewhere between student life and adulthood. Bea and I, dressed in plain shorts and the only ones wearing any type of footwear at all, seem rather out of place. We dither whether to join the cross-legged crowd, or to stand aside with the remaining party people, most of whom seem to be locked in a permanent bear-hug embrace. Exchanging glances with Beata, I’m relieved that she’s feeling the same way. Although it’s gently drizzling we decide to quietly slip away and head off to the beach for a walk instead.

Wedged between the Kahurangi and Abel Tasman National Parks, Takaka is unique in many ways. Geographically it’s accessible by road only from one direction –  a 2-hour zigzag ride up and down the mountain range fencing off Golden Valley from the rest of the world. People tend to come and drift away only very slowly – like several hundred hangers-on, who have just been to Luminate, the annual earth-friendly festival of art, music and culture.

Germans everywhere

Or they simply stay - for good. Like several hundred Germans, who have made their home around Golden Bay area, performing a variety of activities, from bread baking to wood carving. Passing traffic in this region is virtually unheard of, as most sealed roads end up as gravel or dirt tracks – generally at the start of a national park trail, such as the 80 km Heapy Trail. These tramping paths often provide the only overland access to the north, east and west coastline. Since a lot of young backpackers are travelling through Golden Valley between these trails we give them a lift whenever we can. Over the three weeks we carry an assortment of nationalities: Germans, Americans, Aussies, French and Belgians. Squashed up on the backseat between their bags, musical instruments and a rather bemused Matilda, they're always very talkative and cheerful. One such hitchhiker has an enormous skateboard with him and, when we drop him off, literally catapults himself off the backseat onto the pavement.

Beach combers' paradise

Searching for shells

Early one morning we visit Milnthorpe Park, 25 km north of Takaka. It’s an enchanting little corner of Golden Bay, thick bushland, crisscrossed by paths with playful names like Bob’s Bit, Mitch’s Loop and Ian’s Incline. The sun is glistening on the sea, little sparks of reflection giving it an almost silver hue – more magical than anything we've yet seen. The tide is going out and Matilda and Freya chase each other around, squealing with delight each time they stumble upon a starfish or a saucer-shaped shell. These they add to the ever-growing seashell collection taking over our rental car boot. We spend a lovely few hours bathing, playing tag and other games on the sand, before Freya reminds us she has to get back to Takaka in time for her weekly Drama class. On the way back we pass a signpost to a café called The Mussel Inn. Signposts in New Zealand, whether to major or minor attractions, are placed just after the turn-off. That means by the time you’ve seen the sign it’s too late to turn off. You end up indicating at the very last moment and doing a clumsy 90-degrees turn – invariably being horn blast by the motorist behind as they cut past at terrifying speed. Or you just keep going a few more kilometers until the first opportunity to u-turn. We end up going miles out of our way, but get back to the Inn in the end.

“Mussel Inn” is certainly true to name. With seafaring souvenirs like old ship steering wheels and anchors adorning the walls and creaky-timber ceiling it’s more like something out of a Robert Louis Stevenson novel. The theme pub is so popular it ranks amongst Lonely Planet's 18 Best Free Things to do on South Island A trio is practicing for a gig that night, and we sit watching them play as the kids wait for an ice cream sundae "to go". I’m just about to order beer to stay - some of the tavern’s tasty tapped lager - when Bea reminds me of the drama class we're supposed to be rushing home for. Heavy hearted, I pull myself away, but not before glancing up at the live music board and noting a number of other music nights in the coming week. 

Enjoying band rehearsal at quirky Mussel Inn

While the girls do drama we walk around town, inhaling the vibes of this unique little town so detached from the rest of the world – both geographically and spiritually. As we collect them I notice a queue of flashy-looking SUVs (known in NZ as Utes, short for utility vehicle) lining up to collect other kids bundling them in one by one and racing off – presumably to the next ‘play date’. I mention this to David later and he says “Oh yes, that’ll be the wealthy dairy farmers”. No wonder – milk is the number one income earner in this region, there are over 30,000 cows in Golden Bay. It seems odd, however, watching the wealthy wagons – which probably wouldn’t look out of place anywhere else – cruise down the main street past throngs of happy-go-lucky hippies and hitchhikers.

Sky at night

What I love about the Southern hemisphere is that it can be a pitch-black starry night at say, 5 in the morning, which gives the impression that you’re still only half way through the night. And yet just an hour later virtually all the stars - far more than you could ever hope to see at home in Europe - have disappeared from view, and you can slowly feel the light growing stronger behind the surrounding mountains. It’s the time of day I like best, a chance to quietly relax with the first coffee of the day and sit at the laptop which David has kindly lent me to update my journal.

Crowded Inn 

Our chance to revisit the Mussel Inn comes earlier than expected. I’d seen the advert for Chimuka Marimba Ensemble playing at the venue the following weekend, but their music is billed as “ethnic techno”. I'm open to lots of music styles, but techno's not really my favourite. David and Fiona, however, who've seen the group play live, persuade us to go. “Don’t worry about Matilda”, they say, “we’ll see her to bed”. So we put on our best clothes, kiss little Miss goodnight and shoot off. After drinking craft brew around a cosy log fire in the garden we pile into the crowded inn, where dancers of all ages already fill the remaining floor space between same-level “stage” and bar. I soon see why they call this “techno”– its relentless beat is trance-like, making you want to bop up, down and around to the same rhythm. Yet every tune is somehow different. It reminds me of a gypsy dance, circling around, whirling and swirling your head, hands, arms and legs to the wild, addictive music, willing it to never end. When it does finally end we join the crowd shouting “We want more!”. And we get it too. We finally head back home well after midnight, our bodies still bouncing up and down to the divine vibes.