November 1 Sunday After the beautiful sunset I had seen last night at the thermal vents in the park in Rotorua, I wanted to go back in the morning and see them in the light of day. I made it back into town about 13 kms, stopping briefly at the Zorb facility, but they were not open that early so I could not exchange dvd's. The thermal vents were interesting in the morning light, but not nearly as magical as they had been. I did not spend very much time because the Coromandel Peninsula was calling and there was much I wanted to do in my time in the region. My first major stop was at the town of Mt Maunganui, where I climbed the mountain for which the town is named. Tremendous views again. There was a second finger of land that I walked out to the end of and watched some young guys jumping off the rocks into the ocean. There were also jellyfish visible in the water off shore. Next was the Karangahake Gorge area, which had been the home of several gold mining operations. I visited a waterfall, an old mining town remnant, and a few short walking trails. Whangamata is another old mining town, only this one still has a huge open pit mine operating. You can walk up to the edge of the open pit and look into the mammoth hole they are creating and the seemingly antlike machinery working down in it. Next was Wentworth Falls, a very nice two stage water fall of some 50+ meters. I watched the sunset from the top of Mt Paku and then drove a little further north in the dark before camping behind a hedge along the road.

November 2 Monday I had kind of been able to tell last night where I was camping and it was confirmed in the morning: the edge of a large kiwi farm. I got up early just in case the farmers showed up and did not want trespassers. I was only a few kms from Hot Water Beach and planned to have breakfast and reconfigure the car there. Well I got to the first beach access at close to 7 am and walked down to the beach. It was hard to tell if the tide was coming in or going out, but it was clearly not low tide. This was an unexpected surprise based on what the tides had been doing on other beaches throughout the day yesterday. I found a few of the 'hot tubs' people had made presumably yesterday. The beach is otherwise rather ordinary. I went back to the car and was eating breakfast when a maintenance lady came by to check the trash bins. I asked her about the tides and she said it would be low tide at 1:15 pm; too long to wait. I was also getting low on fuel and would have to watch that. So I left Hot Water Beach and drove a little further to
Cathedral Cove. It is a series of four coves and beaches that start from a high bluff and culminates at Cathedral Cove itself after about a half hour walk. I stopped at the other beaches on my way so it took longer, but I thought it was worth it. There are a number of arches, columns, and caves carved into the cliffs or free standing in the surf. There was also a natural shower under a small waterfalls right on the beach. A few people used it after venturing into the
surf. There were not many other people there yet and that was nice. The area seems that much better without crowds of people. When I got back to the car park, a couple buses had just arrived, so my timing was good here, if not at Hot Water Beach. I do not think my pictures really do it justice though. I continued from Cathedral Cove and went slightly north to a secluded beach that is listed as one of the top 20 in the world: New Chums Beach. It took half an hour to walk to it and there were two other people at the far end. Otherwise it was deserted. It did not look like anything special to me, but the cloudy weather at that point certainly aided that opinion. The sun came out for a few minutes and it improved the impression quite a bit. Next was Coromandel Town and it looked like most seaside towns. The remaining drive down the eastern side of the peninsula was seen at lowtide, so lots of mud flats were visible and while it was a nice windy road for driving (and that was truly fun) the coastline was less and less remarkable as I got closer to 'civilization'. In the late afternoon I came through Thames and just south of there entered the Pinnacles Park. I did a short walk to Hoffman's Pool and another to Edwards Lookout. The other walks in the area, while several sounded interesting were too far for me to be doing before dark. There are six or seven campgrounds spread throughout this park and I decided I'll park in one that looks nice and not have to worry about being woken up early as a trespasser. It was the first time I've set up camp in day light in a while and I used the time to clean the van somewhat, clean up all the dishes I would no longer need, cook dinner and then read some.

November 3 Tuesday Well, my final bit of time with the good spaceship ADAMA has arrived. I got up at 7 am from my campsite in the Kaurengi Forest, had my breakfast, cleaned all the dishes, separated all my things from those that stayed with the vehicle, brushed out the interior one more time, and left for Auckland at 8 am. The drive was rather boring. Not much to see on the highway. I had chosen not to follow the coast, because I had spent the last couple days mostly on the coast and the last day, specifically, where I could see across from the Coromandel peninsula to the coastline I would have been driving along. It still might have been preferable to the complete flatness of the plains leading most of the way to Auckland. I topped off the fuel in a suburb called Bombay and easily found the Spaceship depot in the southern suburb of Penrose. I had put a little over 9,000 kilometers on the Spaceship an almost 50/50 split between north and south island. It took me a while to finally pack everything away and head out as a pedestrian
once more. My belongings seem to continually expand and I seriously need to reduce in the next few days before heading to China. Good that one bag is mostly food stuffs. The Spaceship guide says the depot is walking distance from the Auckland CBD, but while that is technically correct it is about 10 km and I doubt anyone seriously does walk it. The lady at the counter said I could walk about a kilometer to the train station and it would only cost me $3.80, or they could call a cab that would be a flat rate $20. I took the train. The two conductor ladies were fascinated with all my baggage and my explanation of what it all was. Neither of them thought they could handle being on their own for 6+ months, like I have, but I had to tell them I have hardly been alone in that time, with all the people I have met, traveled with, couchsurfed with, etc. I got out at the Britomart Station (the central Auckland station) and walked up Queenstreet to one of the two YHA hostels in the city. I had to wait half an hour to be able to check in, got a room for one night (hoping I can contact someone and couchsurf part of the time), and met the two other guys already in the room, Carsten (from Germany) and Bruce (from Taiwan). I spent the afternoon charging my camera batteries and working on these notes. I got an hours worth of internet time at a cafe around the corner from the hostel. By the time I went to bed all eight beds in the dorm room were occupied.

November 4 Wednesday I booked another day at the YHA, then set out exploring. I walked to the top of Mt Eden, a volcanic crater and the highest point in the city. It offers surround views and you can really see how spread out Auckland is. I continued walking away from the city center in search of a hostel, but the directions I had written down from the internet were bad and I went much further than I needed to. A resident with a roadmap in his car helped me out and I eventually found the place. It was the same rate as I was already paying and they did not need any work done in exchange for free nights, so that will not work out. The people I contacted about couchsurfing also were not panning out. I had emailed Mathew (who I met at Taupo) and he had written back that there was a get together at the church for the teens and he would pick me up if I was interested in going. I told him I was, so in the evening he got me and we went out to the suburb of Papatoetoe where the PAPSDA church is. The building is beautiful and includes a church and school. One of the people there said they have 300 students in the primary school and another 300 in the SDA high school at nearby location. What they do on Wednesday evenings is open up the building for ping pong, foosball, basketball and other games for the teens, then they get together for some group activities and break up into smaller Bible study groups for those that are interested. We had vegeburgers and fries to eat before most of the teens started showing up. I played ping pong with Mathew for a while. When we all got together for the group part it was to play a game where you had to get others in the group to help you complete a list of tasks. After a while they had to come up with life principles that had been demostrated through the game – like cooperation with others, things are not always as easy as they look or sound, sharing, etc. Afterwards, Mathew drove me across the Auckland bridge to the community of Devanport which has a very nice view at the night lights from the city. Before dropping me off he loaned me a cell phone and told me he would make sure I had a ride to church on Sabbath. All of this was incredibly generous and I really appreciated it.

November 5 Thursday I walked to the SkyTower, then down to the Viaduct, where the central marina is, along the marina, to a grocery store, through the Auckland Domain, by the Museum, and eventually, back to the hostel. I sorted all the paper I am carrying into piles I could throw out or recycle/mail back home/keep with me. I went to a post office to check out my options on sending some of the stuff back to the states. Depending on the weight it could be expensive,
but I do not think I have more than 2 kg of papers and shells. I met a Swiss guy in the hostel and he and a French guy invited me to go eat dinner with them, so we ended up in a Korean place about a block from the hostel. There are many asian places in the area so our method of picking a place was to look in the windows and the first place with a lot of asians eating there would be the one, since they ought to know if the food is cooked correctlly and well. That seems like a logical approach and I know my dinner was good. I also met a funny Indian man named Vernon from Goa, who knew Goa Gil and is a professional guitar player. He was funny though because he was in our room for several nights and each afternoon he would come in and someone would have taken over his bed because he left nothing behind and no one would have known he was still using the bed. The rest of us have learned to leave a jacket or a couple books or SOMETHING to identify the bed as occupied. He said to look him up if I end up in Goa