This is a silted up jetty from the 1800s in Thames tonight.

Today after torrential rain all through the night, we set off with low clouds and drizzle. As we travelled along to the East side of Coromandel it gradually began to clear away. We crossed forested mountain sides to reach Pauanui. It is a shallow harbour with a long jetty stretching into the estuary.

On the sea side there was quite a strong current with surf waves.

The rare NZ dotterel birds nest there and we saw quite a few on the shore as well as other wader birds. There were old trees growing in the sand dunes and they had jet black tree trunks.

On the other side of the estuary was the tourist town of Tairua. There were lots of people sitting on the grass watching jet ski races on the water. We ate an ice cream and watched the races too.

Further up the coast we reached Hot Water Beach. It is fascinating. You can hire a shovel to dig yourself a hole in the sand. It then fills with hot water from the hot springs below. You can only do this at low tide.

In the photo you can see the people digging and laying in the hot water pools they have made.

A very nice young Maori man let me photo his pool and you can clearly see the hot water bubbling up. I put my hand in the water and it was quite hot! He told me the deeper you dig, the hotter it gets. Again it is a surfing beach and there were lots of sea birds there.

Next we reached Hahei. This is a beautiful beach as you can see with islands out to sea in the bay. From here you can walk to cathedral cove. It would take 90 minutes to reach the beauty spot over a steep cliff and hillsides so we didn’t do it. You could go via boat but the swell was too much today!

Last stop today was Cook Bay. Here Captain Cook landed in 1769 in theEndeavour .

He arrived just as the planet Mercury passed in front of the sun and so he named the bay Mercury Bay. There is a monument of Cook here.

We are very pleased with what we saw today and are keen to see the West side too

We didn’t race from one to the next but spent a while in each place. We had a lovely lunch of ploughmans sitting outside in an orchard. The ham was home cured and the preserves made by them and yummy pickles and cheese, all with tasty toasted bread

The weather was so good to us after 2 days of cyclone. It is cooler now but the rain cyclone has passed over North island and gone. It’s forecast for showers tomorrow and then sunshine for a few days

You have all had a good half term by the sounds of it and I’ve loved seeing your photos of the children thankyou. I do miss you all xxx