Car troubles in the Coromandel

We spent the night in a hotel at Coromandel town. And when we say "hotel", we mean in the traditional Australasian small town sense - a pub, rather than a Hilton or Intercontinental type jobbie! It was actually very clean, nice accommodation, apart from the super soft bed (we like 'em firm) and jukebox going til the teency hours!

December 30, we decided to mission it all the way to Gisborne, in the far east of New Zealand, after checking a weather map at an internet cafe and realising it was the only visible sun on the entire map for the next few days! And so, our "chasing the sun" tour commenced. But first, we had to get to Thames, the gateway from Auckland to the Coromandel, a good couple of hours away along treacherous hill roads, slippery with torrential rain.

We were shocked to see a "taro taxi" (people mover) hooning it along these death-defying roads and overtaking on a bend. Moments later, Tali's car lost traction on the slippy road and in horrible slow motion, we felt it slide towards the hill bank. It seemed like ages in the space it took for the car to hit the rock, although it was probably a matter of one or two seconds. Poor little car baby!! First covered in dust and grime from the gravel road and now bonding with a bank! Luckily, we were going so slowly that we got off incredibly lightly. The bumper was scratched and caked in mud and one of the lights was cracked. All things considered, we were very lucky. The impact caused the tyre to later go pancake-like and totally deflate - but we wouldn't feel it until a couple of hours later.

Relieved to finally reach Thames, we sanitised our dirty laundry, satisfied our salivations at Sola cafe - the one and only vegie eatery in Thames, and proceeded down the main drag.... The squeeling noise which seemed to follow us eminated from the slow leak in our tyre which was worse for wear following its introduction to the muddy Coromandel bank!! Having it repaired at the local Dunlop, we watched another couple's misfortune repaired; they'd popped both their rear end back-up tyres on a rented campervan - we were quietly thankful not to be driving one of those Goliaths on the Coromandel roads!!!!