Coromandel to Fantail Bay

Woke up this morning in our campervan outside the Lion's Den Hostel.  The
windows were thick with condensation inside and out.  It doesn't really feel
like early winter here.  The mornings are quite chilly, but on days when the
sun comes out, by 11 am it becomes quite pleasant.

After a bit of breakfast - enjoying the luxury of having a toaster! - Christina
did some laundry and I cleaned up the van, then we walked around downtown
Coromandel - a town of about 1600 people.  It's a very pretty, rather quaint
seaside sort of town, full of cafes and shops in old, mostly Victorian and
later wooden buildings.  We stopped by the tiny town library, and Christina
bought an old novel from their 'for sale' rack for a dollar, then we grabbed a
pie and a sausage roll from the bakery shop, had our propane tank filled by
a rather taciturn local down at the petrol station, and headed north out of
town along Highway 25.  The passenger side seatbelt is misbehaving again, so
Christina is forced to sit in the center seat of the van.  I suppose we must
look like newlyweds, driving along shoulder-to-shoulder.

Highway 25 continues to wind its way north along the west coast of the
Coromandel peninsula, only occasionally dodging inland for a few km.  When it
does head inland, it always does so with a steep, twisting climb over the
hills.  The road is often narrow and drops off abruptly on the left.  Everywhere
we drive through bits and pieces of coastal rainforest.  5-10 meter tree
ferns hang over the roadway and cluster in patches of the remaining forested
hillsides.  There are bits and pieces of the native first- or second-growth
forest left, but many of the hills away from the road are either grazing
land - thick with greenery, but obviously eroding and criss-crossed by mazes
of cattle trails - or owned by logging consortiums, and covered by replanted
pines or their stumps.  Still, the scenery is beautiful.  The coast curls in
and out around the sea, and every turn of the road reveals a new view full
of different small islands and verdant green headlands.

The further north we drive, the less traffic we see.  With each kilometer, we
drive further and further into an area where people only live by very
deliberate choice.  The only industry up here is tourism and logging.  For
the first hour or so after Coromandel, we drive by one tiny seaside
settlement after another, each made up of a dozen or so holiday homes
("batches") tucked away in their own tiny bay, looking across
shell-strewn rocky beaches at the firth.  Around 1pm, we pull off the highway
for lunch, and eat ham-and-cheese sandwiches at the table of our van,
sliding door open, looking out at the glittering sea.  Everywhere there are
tiny islands popping up steeply out of the Hauraki Gulf.  Some are denuded of
trees, evidently due to past logging or agricultural usage; others are
still thick with forest.  Once in awhile we spy tiny houses peeking out above
sheltered sandy beaches on these islands, many of which must be no more than
5-10 acres in size.  Here and there, great flocks of sea birds sit out upon
the waters - eating, socializing, or just passing the time.

By the time we reach Colville, we are truly in the sticks.  Colville itself is
not much more than a cafe, a general store, and a school.  Not many houses are
in evidence in the town itself, and I suppose most of the population which
calls Colville home must live somewhere up in the surrounding hills.  A bit
north of Colville the pavement ends.  Unpaved roads here are called
'unsealed', and that term can apply to anything from gravel to muddy clay.
It is the latter that we encounter as we continue along the coast.  What was
a narrow paved road becomes an even more narrow unsealed one.  The edges fade
away ambiguously, which is not too bad on the landward side, where the worst
you face is a brush with the grassy, muddy hillside into which the road has
been cut, but is a little more nerve-racking on the seaward side, where shallow
drainage ditch slides off 10 meters through steep hillside of tree ferns,
gnarled trees, and rocks down to the ocean.

It has been mixed sunlight and thick blue-gray clouds for most of the day.
We pull over on one of the many 'slow vehicle' turnouts and watch a double
rainbow pop into sight over the hills to our southeast, then continue north.
It begins to rain lightly, but we press on, desirous of reaching our campsite
and figuring that rain is less of a driving hazard than darkness.  High up
above the sea, we meet one of the giant Isuzu trucks I keep seeing roll by,
and manage to squeak by each other after the truck backs close to the hill
and I swing out, creeping by the truck with our passenger-side wheels treading
the edge of the road.  It is a bit of a hairy moment, but soon over and
forgotten.

Finally, after 3 hours of one-lane bridges and shifting up-down-down-up through
2nd, third, and fourth gear, our campervan lumbers around a bend and we reach
the DOC campground at Fletcher Bay  We are eager to stretch our legs, but
it continues to rain sporadically, and we are not gung-ho enough on the hike
from the campground to test out our rain gear.  In the cool air and shadowed
light, and with the sound of the light rain on our roof, we nod off in the
back of the van.  An hour later, there is no longer enough daylight for a
hike, but plenty for a walk at the rocky beach across the road.  In the early
evening light, fish jump out in the water, and a pair of pied shags loiter
about, then fly away as we get closer.  A couple of far-away fishing
boats are visible out on the water, and to the north we can see the
mountainous shape of Great Barrier Island, to which we hope to take a ferry
in a few weeks.

I move the van to a spot under a great spreading glossy-leafed tree that is
also rather importantly further away from the campsite's pit toilet, locally
(and accurately) known as a 'long drop'.  I suppose my physics education
would enable me to calculate the depth, but it doesn't seem worth the figuring.

Dinner is quick - leftover 'Italian' meat sauce with rice heated up in the
growing darkness while small flies immolate themselves upon our camp stove,
then we cross the road once more to take in the sunset, and a sky filled with
blue-black clouds.  Against the fading light, the twisted trees near the
waterfront make strange black silhouttes from atop their rocky perches, and
far across the water a lighthouse flashes.  Waves lap the shore and drain
back through the smooth rocks with a gushing sound.

Almost dark, we return to the van, wash our dishes, then sit at our respective
keyboards trying to remember the events of the last few days.