We drove up the spectacular road the stretches the east coast of the peninsula. Along the way we turned down to visit the Hot Springs Beach, Hahei and Cook's Landing. This is a sweet corner of NZ, full of character and interest; you could easily spend a week or more here, rather than the one day we allowed.
One of our serendipitous finds was the macadamia nut orchard, where we satisfied our curiosity about the price of these scrummy nuts. They're a lot of work! The orchard, in the process of going organic, produces some lovely nuts and dressings (including some which are gluten free). See www.cathedralcovermacadmias.co.nz.
From Hahei, you can walk to the Cathedral Cove, but on this very hot day we decided against it. This view looks south across Hahei Bay, one of the lovely local beaches.
Hei was the sailing master of the Te Atawa canoe which followed Kupe (the Maori discoverer of Aotearoa) here, and he settled in this bay. There are two pa sites at the further end of the beach.
We found a quiet spot to freepark in Whangapoua, a tiny village on the edge of an estuary tucked into the northern eastern corner of the peninsula. It is reached across acres of salt marsh, and has a very nice little fishing jetty and a pretty sailing yacht on her mooring buoy in the stream. Although it was a wild and windy night, we were very secure.