New Zealand - Hahei Beach
Monday, January 8th
We cleaned up the St. George house so it’s perfect and headed out of town stopping at the Garage door place to make a final decision on the door textures. It’s tricky making all these decisions. I hope it turns out ok. It’s also so crazy to have been focused so much on Christmas, family time and researching homes and all of a sudden switch gears into New Zealand travel. But here it goes.
We drove down to LA and had dinner with Bill and Susan and Luke. It was fun to catch up with them and then go over and see Katie’s new house. Bill and Susan were nice enough to take us to the airport and are keeping our van for the next seven weeks.
Our flight left at 11:55pm and I was asleep before we even took off. I slept for the first 9 hours of our 12 ½ hour flight – minus the 15 minutes when they brought us a chicken dinner at 1:00am. I ate a few bites of mashed potatoes and the caramel treat and fell back asleep. With 3 hours left I woke up to a dark purple hue out of the window. It’s the darkest flight I’ve ever taken. The boys slept through dinner and then woke up to watch a few movies before we landed.
Wednesday, January 10th
We arrived in Auckland on Wednesday morning – totally missing out on Tuesday. We picked up our rental car and then got on the road leading to the Coromandel Peninsula – making a quick stop at a small local market to pick up a few essentials and were happy to find a pizza place next door. We were hungry and the Thai Pizza and Meat Pizza hit the spot.
Thames Coastal Road
We took the Scenic Thames Coastal Road through seaside towns, past beautiful beaches and through tunnels of trees and then drove up above the Hauraki Gulf. Chris naturally assumed the role as the best ‘left side of the road’ driver and took the windy curves easily… while the boys had a rough time in the back.
Waiau Falls
We decided to cut across the Peninsula and stopped to check out the Waiau Falls. There was a pool of light brown water under the falls that didn’t look very enticing but since the boys were ready and dressed to swim they headed right in.
Hahei and our Cabin at The Church
After a quick swim and a little hike down the river we headed back to the car and drove to Hahei - following a little blue bird who floated right in front of the car and showed us where to go along our dirt road. We sang Taylor Swift as we arrived in Hahei and checked into our little cabin at THE CHURCH. It was charming and had open doors to a secluded front deck surrounded with jungle foliage. We moved our luggage into the cabin and got settled for a minute.
Hahai Beach
We walked a couple blocks down to the few restaurants and shops in the downtown of Hahei. We quickly settled on dinner at the Hahei Eatery and took it to go. The weather was just gorgeous as we headed to the beach. Blue skies, warm winds and impressive sand. Multiple small islands in view from the shore reminded me of the beautiful Phi Phi Islands in Thailand. We spread out our beach towels and ate our food in front of an impressive view.
It was pretty magical and I mentioned to Chris that this will be a core memory of the trip. I threw on a sweatshirt while Luke buried Matt in the sand and we stayed on the beach for awhile but still didn’t make it until the 9:00pm sunset.
Back at the cabin the boys did just a little bit of school work while Chris and I studied our St. George floor plan and emailed back a thorough list of small changes to our architect. We had the lights out by 10:00pm.
So happy to be in New Zealand.