Blissful….Serene… and fantastically fun is the weekend I spent in the beautiful town of Coromandel. The host family of a fellow au pair of mine owns a “batch” or beach house out in Coromandel and were kind enough to let four of us use the house for the weekend once again. I previously wrote a blog post about my first weekend in Coromandel, however this weekend wrote a brand new story of its own.
Somehow we always manage to pick our holiday-away weekends when the New Zealand weather is in a rut. The Saturday of our trip was filled with cloudy rain-filled skies with no promise of clearing up… however that was not about to stop us from having the time of our life. After preparing an amazingly delicious and hearty breakfast we departed from our beautiful and beachy abode and began on our expedition through Coromandel.
The first place we stopped was a beautiful commercial winery. We were given the option of choosing four different wines off of a menu for tasting… so naturally we each chose different ones and proceeded to pass the 16 glasses around the table, in a clockwise fashion, and attempted to speak eloquently of the wine we had no prior knowledge of. I think we felt very classy up until the point where the glasses began to take their toll on our laughter containment. Soon we found our table to be the loudest one in the whole restaurant and we felt that was our cue to leave.
Our next stop was another winery not too far from there… this one was a bit grungier than the first and contained a bartending entertainer that had a ball making fun of our American and Danish accents while speaking extremely fast and furious with his vast knowledge of wines, liquor, and New Zealand native facts. He had us laughing so hard we could barely defend ourselves from all of the American slander he had throwing at us.
From there we made our way to Cathedral Cove. An amazing and famous beach I have been dying to go to for quite some time. The walk to the cove was a bit more intense than I had originally thought. The walk way was steep and there were hills, rocks, and staircases to climb up and down. It was raining pretty hard at this point and the wind on top of the hill just about knocked us all off of the cliff and into the bushes, but we pressed on. It lasted about 45 minutes until we saw our ending beyond the horizon of the downward staircase to the beach sand. I took off my hiking boots, socks, rain jacket, and sweater and as my feet touched the soft, damp sand I was in awe of what stood before me.
The ocean was clear and blue, and not more than two people were on the beach at this time, (the upside of making this trek on a rainy day). I ran to the water, did cartwheels in the sand, and felt the wind blowing through my hair. Surprisingly I wasn’t even cold.. mostly due to the fact that I was so excited, my adrenaline must have warmed my entire body.. and perhaps the wine.
We stayed there for a while, just looking at the ocean, taking pictures, writing our names in the sand. It was truly one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. It was definitely unfortunate that the day was not warmer because I could have easily stayed there until nightfall.
I know I have to go back there before my time in New Zealand is up because it truly was a sensational view and feeling of being in a place so beautiful as Cathedral Cove.
Joyful Thinking 