Weekend in Leigh

We took advantage of a three-day weekend (for Auckland's 175th birthday) and set out for Leigh this weekend. This small town is just over an hour's drive north of Auckland, and many of Emma's extended family have lived here in the past, although they all live elsewhere now.

One of our friends had rented a bach (pronounced 'batch', the equivalent of a summer cottage or cabin) for the weekend, and we were invited to stay for the weekend. The view from the balcony was pretty alright:

We arrived after work on Friday night and headed over to Leigh Sawmill, an adorable, rustic brewery/restaurant on the other side of town (ie. a 15-minute walk). They have a great indoor-outdoor setup, complete with a grassy courtyard with bocce, and a playground that's meant for children but oft utilized by adults. The food was fantastic, and they had a lovely crystal wheat beer and a delicious stout on tap, amongst others. We were told in advance by our waitress that the stout was 6.5% alcohol, a warning that some of our group would fail to heed.

Our friend Imee had bought tickets for a concert at the Sawmill on Friday night (it's also a music venue!). We had never seen the headlining band before, but they put on a great show. They're called the Hipstamatics, and their thing is funk covers of popular songs. We decided that we definitely wanted to see them again during our time in Auckland.

On Saturday morning, Emma and the other girls headed out for a 10k run, and Justin went for a short hike up near Goat Island, a marine reserve that is a popular snorkeling destination. After that, we headed to Matakana Market, which appears to be where all ~2 million Aucklanders go on Saturday mornings. The market was packed, but well worth checking out. Later, we headed to Goat Island to check out the snorkeling. The Island sits just about 100m off the mainland, so we were able to snorkel over to it and relax on it's shore. En route, Justin saw several fish, but Emma was not paying attention and did not see any. Then, it was time for some sunbathing. The beach at Goal Island is beautiful, but busy:

 The water looked spectacular.

 Goat Island from the mainland.

We headed back to the Sawmill Pub on Saturday night. "Leigh Bar" had also been an option (the only other restaurant in town), but it didn't quite have the atmosphere of the Sawmill, and had only two meal choices on the menu. We all ordered the 'appetizer ribs', which is a massive plate filled with delicious ribs that none of us could believe was listed as an appetizer.

We rose with the sun on Sunday morning, ready for some surfing lessons.

We headed to Tawharanui beach, about 30 mins from Leigh. Most of the drive is along an unsealed (gravel) road, but that doesn't stop beach-goers. The place was packed. We unfortunately failed to take any photos, but it was another beautiful beach. Both of us got a surf lesson, and while Justin was hanging 10 in no time, Emma spent most of the time being churned around under the waves. Our instructor told us that the conditions were particularly challenging that day (but he may have just said this to make Emma feel better).

We then headed back into Auckland, with a stop at the Puhoi pub, a popular destination for bikers (the leather Harley Davidson kind rather than the road biking kind). We then spent the evening at the Auckland Seafood Festival, where we were very excited to get the chance to see the Hipstamatics again (they might start to think that we are their groupies). We also got to stuff our faces with fish and chips (nothing special), mussel tortellini (amazing), and whitebait fritters (meh).

The Pinnacles Redeux

So back before Christmas, we attempted to do a hike on the Coromandel Peninsula named 'The Pinnacles' but got rained out. Fortunately, we got another opportunity to do the hike last weekend.

We headed out early Saturday morning with a few friends ready for a day of 'tramping'. It was a great hike, with some fun river crossings (and rickety wire flood bridges that only hold one person at a time), lots of elevation gain, and a picturesque panorama at the top. We took about 5 hours for the round trip. The ice cream on the way home was pretty good too.

The view from almost the top.

Justin, pointing somewhere?

The staircase to the top. It was steeper than it looks.

Looking down at the pathway to the top. You can see the Pinnacles Hut off to the right. You can reserve a spot to stay overnight in the hut, which is about a 30 min hike to the top. It would be pretty nice to stay there overnight and make it up to the peak for sunrise. 

The girls, looking down from the top on our kingdom (or queendom).

Waiheke Island

Two weekends ago, we rented bikes and took the ferry over to Waiheke Island. This island is about a 35 minute ferry ride from downtown Auckland. It's about 19km long and full of affluent Aucklanders with amazing beach-front properties who commute into the city for work (or just don't work). Waiheke has some of the nicest beaches in the area, but the real draw is the wine. There are 19 wineries on the island, and we've made it our goal to visit all of them during our time in Auckland. We planned to knock off several of them on our recent trip, and had grand aspirations of potentially making it around a 50km route and hitting 7 or 8 wineries. However, as we soon learned, Waiheke is VERY hilly, and also, this tends to happen:

Ultimately, we ended up doing about half the loop that we had intended and managed to visit 4 different wineries and 2 beaches.

Our first stop was Palm Beach for a quick swim.

There were lots of little trails all around the island that would be great to check out while on foot.

Boathouse and Pohutakawa tree...typical NZ.

Ready to coast down to beach #2, Onetangi.

But we happened to run into our first winery before we made it out to the beach. We had a really great tasting here and would definitely go back. Plus, we loved the name.

Casita Miro was our second winery. This place had a lovely ambiance and Spanish decor. We didn't eat here, but the food looked to be reasonably priced.

A bike on the driveway. Typical Spain.

Finally made it to Onetangi beach for a swim.

Our third winery, Stony Ridge. We each grabbed a glass of wine here and sat out in their olive grove to drink it. They also have a massive patio that looks out over the hills, called the yoga deck. It felt like it would be fantastic to do yoga on.

We were getting pretty tired by this point, but made a little photo stop at Surfdale beach.

And finally, a stop off at our fourth winery, Cable Bay. A pretty lovely view, you can just make out Auckland in the background.

We then headed back to the ferry terminal to wait for our boat. While waiting, we debated for a while about how people get to shore from their sailboats (this was deemed a fair topic of discussion, as Calgary is landlocked).

Justin felt the need to smash some shellfish.

And we caught a pretty nice sunset on our ferry ride back into Auckland.

4 wineries down, 15 to go. Looks like we have a few more trips to Waiheke in our future.

Rhythm & Vines

We decided to have a low-key Christmas this year, and save our energy for some New Year's festivities.

On Christmas day, we headed up to Warkworth, a town about an hour North of Auckland, to visit with Emma's extended family. We were treated to a traditional Kiwi Christmas lunch spread and an impromptu play performed by Emma's younger cousins (burgeoning actresses, to be sure).

Justin capped off the afternoon with a dip in the water at Orewa beach. Definitely beats a polar bear swim.

We also spent Boxing Day in typical Kiwi fashion, by getting dressed up and going to the Horse Races. A great excuse for Emma to wear a fascinator, and Justin to break out a collared shirt.

On the 27th, we rented a camper van and headed down to Gisborne (pronounced Giz-Bin, and commonly abbreviated to 'Gizzy') on the east coast of the North Island. This small city is known for its surfing and for having a laid back atmosphere.

We spent our first two nights at a holiday park on the beach. There was lots of beach time to be had (and lots of sunburns), and we also discovered what has thus far been the best coffee in New Zealand at the Gisborne Deli. The visit wouldn't have been complete without a beer sampler and a charcuterie board at Gisborne's local Sunshine Brewery.

A Justin-approved tree.

The beach at 'Gizzy'.

Sunset.

Sorry, more sunset.

After our two relaxing days in Gisborne, we headed to a local vineyard for the annual Rhythm & Vines festival. This three-day festival mostly features electronic music (yay for Justin), but alt-rock band Bastille were also playing (yay for Emma).  Most of the camping takes place directly within the vineyards. Overall, it was a pretty incredible experience. The best part was that we were able to drive our camper van in and out of the campsite each day, which allowed us to spend our days at the beach and evenings at the concert.

Vineyard camping setup.

Bird's eye view of the campgrounds.

Our home for the week.

Off to the first night of festivities.

Concert security (seriously).

Tee-pee village (aka the 'glamping ground').

The main bar and VIP section.

 A slip & slide on the festival grounds. Clothing optional.

Our favourite hangout was a cute little bar nestled away in the forest...aptly named the Forest Bar. I can't tell if it's Cher in line, or Jesus.

This truck was brought in to mix up the signature Smirnoff cocktails at the forest bar. They had one called the 'gingerbread man' and it tasted like drinking apple crumble...so delicious!

 More forest bar.

 We rang in 2015 watching Bastille & a fireworks display (somewhat inferior to Canadian fireworks).

Happy New Year everyone!

Coromandel Peninsula

Amped up from our hike of Rangitoto, we decided to check out another hike (or tramp, in Kiwi) that had been highly recommended by our Canadian ex-pat friends, Jana and Carlos.

The hike, called The Pinnacles, is in the middle of the Coromandel Peninsula. It's supposed to be quite spectacular. 

We decided to make a weekend of it, to give us time to check out a couple of other attractions on the Peninsula: Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove.

Unfortunately, the weekend trip happened to coincide with a deluge that Mother Nature had planned. When we arrived in the Coromandel Forest Park to hike the Pinnacles, we were informed that there were extreme storm warnings and that the road to the trailhead was closed due to concerns about it washing out in the rain. Therefore, if we wanted to do the hike, we'd have to add an extra 12km just to get to and from the trail head.  We said thanks but no thanks, and opted for a shorter hike up to an ancient Kauri forest instead.

In actual fact, the ancient Kauri forest appeared to consist of just one large tree, but it was quite cool nonetheless. 

Trees on trees on trees.

 Probably the best view of the hike, looking out at a distant waterfall.

 More trees.

We managed to make it through the tramp before the rain started, and we stopped in a little town called Thames on the west coast of the peninsula for some lunch. I only mention this, as it was Justin's first time having a hot mince pie (a very traditional Kiwi meal). He didn't hate it. We then headed to the east coast of the peninsula to check out Hot Water Beach.

This beach sits atop some hot water springs, which leech up through the sand to create hot pools. During most times, the part of the beach that sits on top of the springs is covered with ocean water. However, for 2 hours on either side of low tide, the sand is exposed, and visitors can dig holes and create their own personal hot pools (the average water temperature in the springs is 64 degrees celcius, so it's actually hot). The hot pools then get destroyed as the tide comes back in. 

The beach is exceptionally popular, which we learned when we arrived to find it choca (short for choc-a-block, another Kiwi-ism) about an hour before low tide. Emma had been under the impression that she'd be able to dig a little hot pool for herself anywhere on the beach. In reality, there are just a few small pockets that sit above the springs, so you may find yourself digging fruitlessly in several areas before coming upon a literal hot-spot. We (Justin) attempted a few digs with the shovel that we rented at the beach cafe (it's that popular) but then gave up once we realized that all of the viable pools had been taken. Fortunately, the people-watching was just as good as sitting in the pools. Well, at least that's what we told ourselves. Many groups had dug up massive pools, large enough for 10-12 and then spent the remainder of the time trying to fortify their pools against the incoming tide. One group had even brought sandbags (which proved to be unhelpful). It didn't help them that the rain had started to come down steadily by this time.

We vowed to beat the crowds and return the next morning at 5:30am before low tide to make ourself a pool. This never happened, likely a direct result of us finding two breweries in the vicinity.

The first, Hot Water Brewing Company, is actually attached to a holiday park (a glorified camping ground with some cabins and running water). They had some excellent beers, and gave us free chips and guacamole, so we'd definitely recommend this place. 

After checking out HBC (and wishing we were staying in their holiday park), we checked into our own holiday park in the nearby town of Hahei (pronounced Ha-Heyyyy). From there, we were recommended to try the Pour House (get it?), home of the Coromandel Brewing Company. They had several delicious offerings on tap, as well as fantastic wood-fired pizza. 

The next morning, we woke up (well after 5:30am) to monsoon-category rain, but decided that we were going to check out the nearby Cathedral Cove. No way were we going to be deterred by the weather.  

Here's what we expected to happen.

And what actually happened. Actual umbrellas not pictured, but both of ours were mangled by the heavy wind. We couldn't even see the cove, the rocks, or the water due to the excessive amounts of rain and fog.

It's safe to say that we'll definitely be back to the Coromandel over the summer, and we will hopefully get in a good hike of the Pinnacles and a proper view of Cathedral Cove the second time around. We will also probably need to sample both breweries again to ensure that they remain up to standard.