Coromandel

Drove up to Coromandel after Rotorua. I have to say the drive did not grab me terribly- the novelty of hairpin bends wore off some time ago and every town/village was sea-side/surfing oriented.
Coromandel itself, however, was fine and I found myself a very pleasant motel up the coast a bit overlooking the bay. Spent a morning following a little road to nowhere, with a beach and some houses at the end. A wonderful old tree had semi-collapsed-grown down onto the beach and formed a sort of cave - magical. Then in the afternoon I did the touristy thing and went for a ride on the Driving Creek Pottery railway. NZ potter Barry Brickell originally built this crazy, small guage railway to collect clay from the hillside, but it seems to have been extended over the years and now winds and zigzags its way up the hillside, through native forest up to the 'Eyeful Tower' (NZ seems to be full of such puns...). An hour's round trip and actually very enjoyable. Looking down into the crown of a tree fern is amazing, with all the leaves radiating out...