Visiting the Coromandel Peninsula and canoeing the Whanganui River

Apologies to readers wanting a logical order to these entries. The last entry before this bulk posting was John’s report on the first week of our Spring school break in Tutukaka and his fantastic bike ride in Australia.  Here’s what the girls and I did after we dropped John and Ruthie off at the airport. John was heading to Perth, Australia and Ruthie back to Wellington to work on a play. Shortly after arriving in New Zealand, Ruthie sent her resume to the main theaters in Wellington offering her back stage services and got a volunteer job as stage hand (later promoted to Assistant Stage Manager) for a Circa Theatre production of Birthday Boy which was in rehearsal the second week of the girls break so she headed back to start work.

With Claire back in the navigators seat, we drove east from Auckland to the Coromandel, a lovely peninsula with mountains and beaches galore. We stayed with an incredibly warm and generous couple we’d never really met: Liz Butterfield and her partner, Graeme Harrison. I’d chatted with Liz on the phone about some of the challenges she was facing with her social enterprise, Hector’s World, an interactive web program to teach children about Internet safety. When we happened to exchange a follow-up email she encouraged me to stop by, and so I did!

They live in Thames, an old gold mining town.

We stayed with them for two nights and had the time of our lives. The girls helped Graeme make muesli for breakfast and pasta for dinner.

They have a magnificent yard including avocado trees and various fruit trees, including a variety of lemon that is so sweet that you drink it fresh squeezed without any sugar. Graeme is a beekeeper and twice while we were there he was called away to help get neighbors who’d just been visited by a swarm.

We helped him get one swarm into one of his available hives.

In between great meals at their house, Liz, Eleanor, Claire and I drove across the peninsula to Hot Water Beach, famous because at low tide you can make your own hot tub in the sand, by digging over some hot springs and blending with fresh cool sea water as the waves roll in.

We finished off the vacation with a 90km canoeing adventure on the Whanganui River.  It is counted among New Zealand's great "walks." A Māori stronghold, which, coincidentally, is Minister Turia’s home, the river attracted international tourists going back to the turn of the century for its rugged beauty. Included among them was Mark Twain. Although not your typical tourist. He was on an international speaking tour, raising money to pay off his immense debts and upon reaching Whanganui stayed for a bit. He was attracted to the steamboat culture reminiscent of the Mississippi and got involved in some of the Māori politics.

The politics continue. As Māori have gained more power in modern New Zealand, they’ve called for the river’s (and affiliated city’s) name, Wanganui, to be returned to what it was historically, Whanganui. The Crown has decreed, after years of conflict, that it should be with the ‘h’, but as you can see,  it is not universally accepted.

We were joined on the canoe trip by the Claire’s good friend, Grace and her dad, Robert. We went with Canoe Safaris out of Ohakune http://www.canoesafaris.co.nz/. They provided the canoes, the food and a guide who also served as cook – pretty deluxe. We put in at Whakahoro and paddled to the John Coull Hut.

The next night we stayed at a farm that also hosts guests. We also did a 90 minute return walk to the infamous Bridge to Nowhere which was built in the 1930’s for an expected road. The road, however, was never built because experience was showing that the land was simply too difficult to farm and hence there was insufficient need for a road even though the bridge was already there.

The last day, we paddled up a lovely tributary to an old Māori sacred natural cathedral and later stopped at a waterfall that rushes out of an immense cave before we docked at Pipiriki. I highly recommend the trip. One could do it easily without a guide, especially if the water level was pretty high, like it was when we went.