We headed up to Thames on Thursday and unfortunately both Thursday and Friday were pretty well rained out. We stayed in a nice YHA there and played games and just hung out on Thursday night and had originally planned to do some tramping on Friday, but that was all canceled due to the heavy rain falls. We did however brave the rain and do a short 20 min. tour around the forest to check out the huge Kauri trees. These trees were massive and the ones they pulled out of here long ago were even bigger.
The benefit of rain in NZ is that often times it comes and goes along with the sunshine and it leaves in it's tracks amazing rainbows!!! This is always my favorite part of traveling in NZ, and I confess to being a lot like the crazy "double rainbow" dude on TV.
We came across several full and brilliant rainbows, but this one in particular was picture worthy as it beautifully framed the local farm. This is a typical NZ winter scene.
We finally got a good seascape photo when we arrived at the Hot Water Beaches. Since we were rained out of tramping, we spent Friday driving along the Coromandel checking out all the little towns and ducking in and out of shops in the rain. It was so nice to reach the Hot Water Beaches and see the sun shinning! (Although this was still come/go)
We stayed the night here at a Top 10 Holiday park within walking distance to the beach so that we could enjoy the famous Hot Pools. You can only go there during a window of time around the tides, and you go to this area and dig pools in the sand where the hot water comes up from underground and envelopes you in therapeutic bliss....Let me tell you, this was by far one of the greatest things we have experienced here! It was amazing.
We arrived a little after four and found a spot in amongst the others trying to find some warmth. The combination between the cool breezy air and the hot water from the pool was awesome. And the view? - How could it get any better than this? Watching the day fade into the ocean as the waves crash down...yeah, I'm pretty sure there is one of these Hot Beaches in heaven.
Travis dug the first hole before we shed our warm clothes and hopped in. The first hole we dug only lasted about 5 minutes as the water temperature rose so fast that we were "boiled" out and had to dig a hole further out. It was surprising how hot the water got. We laid in our pool for several hours and ran back and forth between the FREEZING ocean water and the hot pool. We stayed just until darkness took over the beach and we headed back to our cabin to cook dinner and play cards. Definitely a sweet success for our otherwise rained-out holiday. This made the whole trip well worth it. 
The next day we headed to Tauranga and stopped at the towns along the way. One of the spots that we visited while the sun was out, was Whangamata.
There were some massive sand dollars here, and I was determined to bring home the "granddaddy" but unfortunately all the big ones had gotten broken along the way, or were still alive. So, we decided to be happy with the unique shells that we found, and made our way to Tauranga.
Travis had managed to get us an amazing apartment at Mt. Maunganui that was right by the beach and right up against the mountain. He landed this amazing place through the rural fire crew that he volunteers with - they have shares in various holiday homes that folks can utilize. This one is amazing and we highly recommend it. It was awesome at the end of a trip to have a facility that was so nice. We were able to do all of our laundry and cook a really nice dinner and watch a movie and stuff. It was great. 
Mt. Maunganui was really neat as well. We walked around town in the rain and then it cleared up a bit and we were able to go out and see the ocean and take a few photos.
Not too shabby for winter time!
You can see our apartment tucked back against the mountain.
While most of the areas we visited along the way we were not able to capture on camera (due to the rain) we did see some amazing views and this was truly an awesome trip. We highly recommend the Coromandel Peninsula to anyone visiting New Zealand. We will definitely be heading back up that way as there were just tons of tramps that we really wanted to go on and lots that we did not get a chance to see.Overall it was wonderful to just have a break from study and work and to just have some time to relax and enjoy some different towns.
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