(written on December 19th from notes taken previously)
Today was sort of a just-sit-around-chilling day. After getting up, I drove over to Port Charles where I emptied Micro John and just sat on my bed for a while wasting my life away on my phone screen.
From there, I headed up to Stony Bay, but when I got there, I realized that it was just a DOC campsite that didn’t appear to have a day-use area?
There were also a fair number of people there, and I wasn’t really wanting to be around people. Fair number is relative, of course. There were probably only a handful of vehicles in the campground that I could see, but between that and the day-use concern, I turned around, headed back to Port Charles, and once again just hung out in my van.
Different part of the area, same story. 😅
As the day wore on, I got myself going and started driving from the Kennedy Bay area across the path toward the town of Coromandel.
There was a little car park at the top with a beautiful view of the ocean and islands below, so I pulled into the car park and, barefoot, walked the trail up the hillside a bit, taking some pictures of the beautiful view along the way.
I noticed that there was some kind of radio or cell tower or something on the opposite Hill, which was a fair bit taller than the one that I was on, and I saw a gravel road going up the hill, so I figured I’d give it a go and watch the sunset from the highest point I could access with my van.
That… turned out to be a bit of an adventure. 😅
The gravel road was steep, with a fairly sharp drop off on one side at times. After driving for maybe a kilometer or two or three, I came around to bend where there was just too much gravel and too steep of a slope for my poor front wheel drive van to get any traction. The tires just spun until the rubber burned, and then it would slide backwards.
😅
I wasn’t really a fan of sliding myself right off the edge of the steep hillside, so very slowly, and very carefully, I backed down the one-lane road, around multiple bends, until I was finally able to turn around.
That was a relief. 🙃
The sunset was beautiful looking down to the coast below, and the water, the islands, and Auckland across the water.
I tried to get gas in Coromandel, but that was a no go, so I ended up driving all the way to Whangapoua where I found the designated freedom camping area not just full but with far more campers than permitted.
Not wanting to risk getting a very expensive ticket, I headed over to the New Chums Beach upper parking area. I tried the lower parking area at first, but it had No Freedom Camping signs, despite there being many freedom campers there.
The upper parking lot didn’t have the same restrictions. 🙏
And that’s that. A veging, chilling day.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 