Although it was a travel day is was a good one to catch up and settle down after the great intensity of the past two days. Willie was coming to pick me up after the ferry arrived and take me over to Whitianga, a larger town on the other side of the peninsula. The ferry was on time but the competitor's bus broke down so he had to pick up other travellers for them. He said they all live in a small town, know each other and it is better to help each other out because everyone gets into a jam every now and then. So we had a full bus, I got to ride shotgun again. It was a beautiful drive across on another curvy road. We took a detour so the extra riders could get to their place. On the way we had a good discussion about how business's grow.
At first Witianga was a shock, and a bit of a disappointment after the coziness of Coromandel. The motel suite is large but standard and does not look over the ocean which I thought it did when I booked it. When I asked he just smiled and said 'sea view' pointing to the bay peeking up over the back row of houses, 'not ocean view'. The real view is over the parking lot.
After the initial surprise it doesn't matter. Whitianga is about 3x bigger than Coromandel and spreads along a huge sandy beach bay and back up into the hills behind. There is a road that runs along the bay but when you are down by the water's edge it's all about the water and the shells and the birds. It is so long I walked for over two hours. Me, the oyster catchers and gulls all checking out the shells washed up on the sand. I followed the birds along, took some picts and picked up shells to bring home.
The clouds are low and it's rained on and off throughout the afternoon and evening. It's fine if your dressed for it. At the end of the beach, closest to my motel, I found the 'ferry terminal', a tiny kiosk for a tiny ferry. Tomorrow morning it will scoot me across in 5 min to access the longer hikes on the other side. A Dad and his kids were fishing off the warf. One of them excitedly caught a fish big enough for their dinner. A proud moment. Afterwards I headed into town, bigger and more shops. There aren't a lot of tourists it's mid week, school is back in, they say the weather hasn't been good but or a Canadian it seems fine, a little wet but warm. I picked up a few groceries and a great mid east donair salad take away then home to catch up on email, pictures and blog until after midnight. A good day.
I don't know what kind of seeds these are but they seemed like bead of jewelry
Feeding time is good
Not a lot of our species out today
In this weather reflections work well
For my Three Pines Readers this place feels a little simar.
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