School trip – Coromandel Peninsula 1

On 15th and 16th August, I went to Coromandel Peninsula, which is one of the best sightseeing places in North Island, New Zealand, with my classmates as a school trip. It's still winter and I didn’t expect that this trip would be fine. To be honest, I didn’t want to go there at first because I was not excited at all. However, the weather was almost perfect to travel and it was not colder than I expected. I have already been to Coromandel before with my friends, but at this time the places we went was different from the previous trip.

When we went to Coromandel for the first time we haven’t done any activities, although we could really enjoy walking to Cathedral Cove or relaxing in the beach. At this time, we focused on doing activities to experience because we are studying travel & tourism! What we did in this trip was kayaking and bone carving.

Around 8.15 on 15th Aug, we set off to Coromandel from Auckland. It took approximately two and a half hours to get there. At first we went to water works, which is the theme park with using some water tricks. There was nothing attractive in the water works because the tricks were all made for kids and I think only the families can enjoy in this place. I am old enough not to enjoy this kind of thing, so I just drank a cup of coffee and had lunch in the café located in the entrance of the park.

After visiting the water works, we headed for the beach in Hehai to do the Cathedral Cove Kayak Tour. This tour started from the beach in Hehai and kayaking to the beach in Cathedral Cove, exploring the beautiful coast line. In addition to kayaking, the tour guide offered us a cup of hot chocolate in the beach and it was really nice. As the duration of the tour was approximately three hours, we could enjoy enough looking around the odd rocks, small islands and of course kayaking itself.

I think kayaking is harder than the people usually expect. I have done kayaking in Japan and I got an arm sore at that time. And this time, my partner said to me “Faster, faster!” to go faster than others and I used my muscles uneconomically. In the result of that, I got sore again. But strangely enough, I got a leg sore this time. I guess why I got a leg sore was I couldn’t set my leg in right position from the beginning and my posture was strange all the time. Other than that, anyway, I could really have a good experience because I had wanted to try marine activity in New Zealand.

After Kayaking, we went to the backpackers’ hostel named “Turtle Cove Backpackers” to spend a night. This backpackers’ hostel was amazing. Although I had had stayed a number of backpackers before, this “Turtle Cove Backpackers” was one of the best place I had ever stayed. The room was clean and tidy. The kitchen was also clean and tidy enough to be relaxed and to have dinner and breakfast. Moreover the atmosphere was peaceful, I felt really comfortable. If you have opportunity to visit Coromandel, I recommend you to use this backpackers’ hostel.

The plan of the second day was to experience bone carving. I will update the details later.