Halftime

December 6th 2016

Roadtrip

So goooo, tell it on the mooountaaaain... — The radio blasts 'the best Christian music' from Life FM as we're cruising through the Shire in our 13 year-old, champagne-coloured Nissan Bluebird.
Only half an hour later will we learn how to change the station.

After a drive of about three hours, which Jan handles very well in spite of the left-hand traffic, we arrive in Whitianga — a small coastal town on the Coromandel peninsula east of Auckland.

The drive, even on winding curvy roads, is smooth; also thanks to a surprisingly reliable navigator. Who would've thought? ;).

We check in in a tiny, comfy beach hostel, explore our surroundings including "downtown" Whitianga, consisting of one supermarket, two banks, and a handful of shops, and watch some Lord of the Rings to get in the mood.

Once more we have to notice: Germans are everywhere...

The next morning, we head to Cathedral Cove — a huge rock formation on the beach and one of the most famous sights around here. Due to a lack of parking space, however, we're forced to make a short detour to a nearby beach that is still almost empty.
The beaches here are all super beautiful, anyway — at least where we've been so far. And here on the shore, we also find some time for a new V-Log:

When we are done swimming and relaxing, we head on to the Hot Water Beach about 15 minutes away. As the name suggests, the beach is known for its spots where you can dig pools in the sand in low tide that will fill with hot water thanks to geothermal activity — DIY hotpots, so to speak.
The area in which that works is pretty small, so the crowd is perched together on a small part of the beach building their grown-up sandcastles. Naturally, we join in on the fun and come to realize that, as another digger puts it nicely, this place is called Hot Water Beach, not Warm Water Beach — in some spots, the water is almost boiling.

Boiling hot at one spot, cold at the next — it's called nature. The whole geothermal-thing reminds me of Iceland, where you often see these hot springs.

Later in the afternoon, we try again — once more we drive up to Cathedral Cove — and with more luck, this time.
From the parking area, a path leads us through incredible scenery full of ferns, trees, and rocks for about 20 minutes.
Especially striking are the tall ferns that we've come across as the national symbol a few times already.
Steep, wooden steps guide us past crooked trees to the beach, which looks very impressive especially in the early evening sun: Huge, rocky cliffs and free-standing pillars stick out to both sides of the water.
To the left of the stairs, we pass through a tall rock arch, the cove's main attraction, behind which the beach slowly fades into rocky coast.
Halftime?

As hinted towards in the title, today marks the half-time point of our journey. Maybe, that is... it might also have been yesterday — the is no consensus among experts, especially regarding the impact of the International Date Line.
We celebrate the occasion with home-cooked noodles and a couple days of beach vacation.
When we think back to our first stops, we can't help but notice the sheer amount of things we have experienced and how long this journey has been already: Home — that was before Auckland, Sydney, Seoul, Hong Kong, Guilin, Shenzhen, Singapore, and Dubai — and even China seems to be worlds away already.
As we mentioned in our last update from China, we're a bit surprised ourselves as to how smooth everything has been going: We have not yet faced any unsolvable problems, even managed to get a rental car and, by and large, stayed fit and healthy throughout. Let's hope that the second half works out just as well.

We have been to some wonderful places that I've promised myself to come back to some day — and I'm sure there are more interesting places to come. We are very excited about experiencing more things we would never have expected and meeting people we haven't met before. From now on, the days count down to when we'll be able to sleep in again and won't have to care about what to do each day. But still we are curious about what is waiting for us and cannot wait to gain those new experiences.