Breaking Into Summer

By the end of November we were comfortably into summer. The uncertainty in the weather that prevailed last year had been succeeded by constant days of reliable sunshine. We felt confident in embarking on a weekend away, and had sufficient faith to return to tent life.

A friend from work was celebrating his birthday with friends in the Coromandel, so we used the excuse to get out of the city and join them. We left Auckland around 9am on Saturday morning and were tucking into fish and chips near our destination around noon. The others hadn’t been to ‘Hot Water Beach’ before, so we met there and watched them battle against the tide as they attempted to dig their hot pools. A cool wind dissuaded us from shedding clothes and giving anything more than our feet to the hot water, but the tourist-virgins splashed around victoriously all around us.

When we arrived at the campsite, the sun was out in force and the cool wind had disappeared. We took a short walk over a couple of sand dunes and onto the adjoining beach. There were no plans beyond just being here, so we relaxed with a few beers, strolled along the sand, and tried fishing from the shore. Sadly the only thing we caught were crabs, but that didn’t matter; we’d previously stocked up on meat from the supermarket so our BBQ was more than adequately equipped for a hefty dinner.

It felt good to be in a tent again. It was cramped, uncomfortable sleeping at its best, with an early morning sunlight wake-up call. It brought back fond memories of all the fun we’d had camping around Western Australia, and helped us mentally escape that much further from our working lives in Auckland.

In the morning we smiled at each other as we packed up the tent. Our speed and efficiency betrayed how practiced we were and we easily fell back into the old routine, knowing our parts in the process.


The idea was to grab a full breakfast somewhere, and then beach hop our way back around the Coromandel Peninsula, slowly returning to Auckland Sunday evening.

We picked up a mighty fry-up in Whitianga and dented the sand of one beach, but it wasn’t long before the birthday boy was calling for more booze and we were taking in an early lunch.

The day moved on and it became more obvious we were hearing a different drummer than the birthday group. Their goal was a full-on drinking session back in Auckland, and ours was to post-pone the return trip and enjoy the last of our break. So, we parted ways as they returned home with maximum speed, & we stayed on a beach.