NZ Part 4 - A Short Rest

With our vacation going over Christmas we wanted a few days to slow down and be able to celebrate Christmas with at least a shred of our usual traditions. We ended up in the small town of Tairua. It's located on the Coromandel peninsula in the North with endless beaches, epic coastal views, and car-sick-inducing windy roads. Tairua was the perfect little town for our holiday break. It's the kind of town where everyone knows everyone and everyone is friendly. When purchasing some lights to make our rental a little more festive, the owner of the hardware store offered us some of her old decorations to help.

Even when resting we had a couple spots we didn't want to miss in the surrounding area. Hot water beach is a beach where you can dig a hole and it fills up with hot water from an underground hot spring. Sounded cool but we were confused when we got there and nobody else was digging holes. Turns out we either failed in our research or just forgot because we planned this too long ago but apparently the hotspring area is only accessible during low tide and we were at the peak of high tide. After some quick research we found out our second stop was also best at low tide. So we just enjoyed the beach and headed back to the house. At least it was only the most treacherous windy cliff-side drive I've ever made.

Later that evening we decided to make the trek again to attempt a visit to Cathedral Cove. It is very likely the most famous view in all of New Zealand and we weren't going to let a difficult drive get in the way. That's what barf bags are for. We arrived in the late evening for a nice sunset hike to the beach only to find out all of the parking lots were closing soon. Failed again. We kept driving anyway and found a house that was offering paid parking in their driveway just a little ways down from the trailhead and much closer than the parking lot. Adventure saved. For all our mishaps we ended up on the beach mostly by ourselves. Walking through the cave out to the secluded beach with the large white rock jutting out of the sea we felt like the Pevensies returning to Narnia. A very different Christmas Eve but one we will but soon forget.


Having never experienced a warm weather Christmas before, we took most of our planning inspiration from our favorite Aussie children's cartoon, Bluey. We went for a Christmas swim in the ocean, played a rousing game of classic catches on the sand, dad cooked up lunch on the barbecue, and we ended the day with cricket on the beach. Meri Kirihimete!






























Location: Tairua, New Zealand

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