Paradise lost

Sadly, she didn't - and the next morning, December 29, it all turned to shit when the wind picked up and we were warned by the DOC ranger of heavy rains and 90kph gales. Our Great Outdoors tent, marketed as hardy, just couldn't handle it. The poles were bending and the fly was caving in.

We had no choice but to abandon camp after just one day, a decision that seemed to break DJ's heart and consequently Tali's too. Still, with the weather getting worse by the second, we had little option but to work fast, packing up our things and bundling them sardine like into Tali's cramped car.

We heard there was a backpackers' at Fletchers Bay up the road, the absolute tip of the peninsula and literally the end of the road, just a short drive away from Port Jackson. However, the trip involved driving through a ford - and when we got to Fletchers, the car was dripping scary green stuff that we thought could be antifreeze leaking from the radiator. It turned out to be merely water from the air conditioning unit, which got soaked when we drove through the ford - but at that point, the last thing we wanted was to get stranded in the absolute boonies with a dying car. So we decided we had little choice but to mission it to Coromandel town and hope for the best...

It ended up being quite a drive, in difficult conditions, although nowhere near as treacherous as the Opotiki to Gisborne route we would take the following night. We passed some interesting signs along the way, including a road sign telling us there were kiwis nearby (sadly we didn't see any - few people ever do, considering they are nocturnal, bush-dwelling and very shy) and a community hall sign in the tiny township of Colville (the closest settlement to Port Jackson, over an hour away), banning gumboots and stiletto heels.

Looking out our Port Jackson tent that morning, we could tell the weather was turning to custard