Whitianga

With the car stereo playing Tom Waits’s “Foreign Affairs” I set off from Auckland heading east along the Hauraki Gulf, aiming for two days of exploration out on the Coromandel Peninsula.

Lonely Planet promised white-sand beaches, abandon gold mines and large tracts of untamed bush. Reading up at the youth hostel last night, especially the very north of the region attracted my attention.

And after a day on the road I must say that New Zealand has been everything I (and a few hundred thousand Germans) have dreamt of. South of Colville I found a pristine beach which I simply could not resist, with a water temperature well above 20 degrees I felt almost guilty given the season back in Sweden...

Otherwise, it is the first time since my solo-adventures along the Jersey Shore in January that I get to drive hundreds of kilometres on my own. Despite all the “active driving” on switchbacks, it leaves me in a rather reflective mood as the day comes to its end here at the Pacific Shore in Whitianga.