In the morning we drove across the neck of the peninsula to Coromandel, another town which owes its size to mining, although now it sustained by tourism. This building, once a bank, with an assay office at the back, is now a shop selling fishing bait and tackle.
The charm of the sacred matai has worn off and it's pouring with rain as we write this in a holiday park in Thames. We were going to go to the tip of Coromandel, a fairly empty and inviting place, but not when there's gale force northerlies and heavy rain forecast for the next few days. So we've tucked in here for tonight, and had a yummy dinner of fine port (the butchers in Whangamata) marinaded in an excellent Pip-invented mixture using some of our new macadamia nut oil. We hope it will clear enough to walk in the kauri forests tomorrow.