ANZAC Weekend Tour, Coromandel Peninsular.
With the Classic and Sports Car Club Northland. 24th - 27th April 2015. (Day 2). It was grey and overcast this morning as we headed off around the bottom of the Firth of Thames for our first stop at Matatoki Cheese Barn, for morning tea.
The owner, who is also cheese maker, told us all about the their cheeses and the other related products.
Les was excited as he thought he had found a spare wheel for the A30.
We had a selection of their organic cheeses to sample with our cuppa
We then had a look around the old crap, oops! I mean the memorabilia decorating the place, I liked the drill press and the old saw, I think I saw KC using a saw like this recently.
We checked out the live stock, then headed off to Thames and on up the peninsular.
The Coromandel Peninsular is a mountainous area, with a large amount of it covered in forrest.
Looking north there was rain all around, but fortunately the front was moving ahead of us and we were just getting the remaining showers, although some were quite heavy.
The road follows along the shoreline most of the way and is quite narrow as it twists in and around the rocky coast between the water and the mountains.
Any areas where there was enough space baches had been built, often stuck to the sides of the hills.
There were a lot of people perched on the rocky outcrops fishing and large numbers of boats out fishing in the gulf. Many of them fishing around the mussel farms.
The narrow twisty road is bad enough now, but when I think back almost 50 years when my dad drove us up there in his 1954 Humber Super Snipe with the 15 ft caravan and the 13 ft boat behind that.
The road was gravel back then and the car had no niceties like power steering or auto transmission. Dad always said it was the nicest tractor he had driven. Note the colour scheme on the car and caravan, Dad had the car painted to match the caravan.
When we reached Tapu, we headed inland a few kms to visit a garden full of sculptures.
(Sorry Dale, we didn't get any photos of your old family bach as it was raining again as we went through there, and by the time we came back out again the camera battery was flat. I couldn't see the old tram car out the back as there are lots of trees all around. I had seen what looked like the tram on google maps).
We reached the driveway in to the gardens,
steep and narrow as it wound through the bush.
The rain stayed away while we went off for a walk through the bush tracks. There are sculptures all over the place along side the track
Then it opens out to a lawn with more sculptures placed around. (More photos in my gallery).
When it was time to leave, one of the other cars went down the drive first to make sure no one else was coming up. It would have been a problem if we met up with someone else, as we headed down with the camper in tow.
The road back go the main road was only one lane in places, so had to keep a good eye out for approaching traffic.
We headed on to Coromandel township, where the information centre had set aside an area in the main street for us to display the cars, while we went to have lunch.
by mrwall1 » Sun May 10, 2015 9:37 pm 
I have been enjoying putting them together.
