Thames Coast

It was sad leaving our friends Dianne and Gary at Mt Maunganui, but also nice to be travelling a bit closer to home and to our boys, Oscar and Hunter.

The trip over the Kaimai Ranges was uneventful, and the view from the top was as lovely as ever, but as usual, the Waikato was hazy and a clear photo would not have been possible. Our first stop on the trip was in Matamata.

While we were in the camp at Mt Maunganui we had seen another motorhome with an impressive bike cover made by Matamata Saddlery, and our bike cover was falling apart. We decided to stop and see what they could do for us. Peter Gates was the ultimate salesperson. We spent ages there talking about electric bikes (including Bruce having a go on Peter’s bike), bike racks, windscreen covers and in the end bike covers. We ended up purchasing one off the shelf that Peter believed would cover our present bikes as well as electric bikes in the future, should we choose to go that way. The cover was certainly 150% better than what we had.

Peter was also keen to make a windscreen cover for us to trial. We were not sure about purchasing one at this stage, but will happily trial it and see where we go from there. Peter is keen to have a pattern for every motorhome out there, and he had not yet done one for our era of Fiat Duccato, so he was wanting to give it a go.

From there it was a leisurely drive to Thames where we pulled in to the Pak n Save carpark and met up with Emma and Elodie for a while. Maia was at gym during that time and Emma said she was not happy to be missing out! All too soon, Emma had to go and pick up Maia and we decided that rather than park over in Thames, we would head up the coast and try and find a seaside park for the night and that turned out to be Waioumu Bay.

The beach itself is fairly small but the freedom camping area is delightful – in a park area, well off the road, with a magnificent old pohutukawa tree with large clumps of aerial roots hanging off it.

There was also a toilet block, electric barbeques and a cafe across the road. What more could you want! The sunset was beautiful.

We had a leisurely start the next morning and ambled up the coast towards Coromandel town. I was surprised to see a seal lazing about on the rocks.

We stopped again to look at the view from the top of the ranges.

And we stopped to mosy around Coromandel town. However, the whole Covid situation seemed to be treated very casually there with little in the way of social distancing and poor mask use. You would think that after the initial scare they had there that it would be taken a bit more seriously! It actually made me feel a bit uncomfortable so we carried on, over the hill to Matarangi, our next stop for the night.