The Black Lung Has No Strength and No Nutrients, Part 5: Nature Tries to Kill Us Because We are Weak

The night after we left Hobbiton was to be honest, Not Great, Bob. We did go get some Hokey Pokey ice cream at a convenience store, so that was awesome. Hokey Pokey is something that should definitely come to the US. It's really good. According to the internet, it's honeycomb toffee, which I don't really know what that means. But so yummy. The problem came in when we got to our lodgings for the night. Most of the rest of vacation was going to be in Coromandel, which is a peninsula up north on the North Island. So we had booked this place for 5 nights. Plus, it was very late and we were very tired when we finally got there. But friends, it was gross. I mean, I kind of respect a photographer who can make a place that is pretty darn old look good in pictures. But to actually not clean the place before we came was going too far! Also, it was a cabin type of situation, which means that the bathrooms were not attached. We knew this beforehand, but combined with the grossness of the sleeping/eating facilities, we were not happy. And the beds were very uncomfortable! And it was a very windy, very stormy night, so it felt like we were going to blow away the whole night long. Basically, we stayed that night because it was so late, but we immediately cancelled the rest of our stay and found another place for the other 4 nights. Honestly, we felt a little bad, because the lady who owned the cabin was very nice, but what can you do? The place we stayed for the other 4 nights was very nice, and the owner even let us use her washing machine, which was great. The only issue with her was that she seemed to really want to hang out with us, which was weird. She told us that she was pretty recently divorced, and she seemed to want to recapture her lost youth. Little did she know, we are secretly old people, so we were no help in that regard.

The morning we left our sad sleeping place was kind of a bummer. It was rainy and windy and we might have stayed indoors for a couple of hours in other circumstances, but we had to go out, because we couldn't check into our new place until the evening. We also didn't have any definitive plans aside from going to the beach, but since the weather was terrible, we decided to drive up the coast and see what happened. Almost all of New Zealand that we were in was very hilly/mountainous, but Coromandel seems especially so. In fact, it was this day that I got so carsick that we stopped in the town of Coromandel and got some motion sickness medication from a pharmacy. We also stopped at a cafe and got some hot chocolate. The hot chocolate there is so creamy. I'm not really sure what they do to it to make it so good, but they have succeeded! Also in the town, they told us about a short hike just outside of town where we could see a Kauri tree! Kauri trees are really enormous, kind of Redwood size I'd say. They grow very tall, very thick, and very straight. Apparently they were in high demand when European settlers first came to New Zealand, because they were great for making masts for sailing ships and other building projects. So, like people, they cut down way too many of them. Now they're protected, so I'm pretty sure no one is allowed to cut them down. But now also, they are being threatened by a disease called Kauri dieback disease. When you enter a grove/path to a grove, and when you leave, there are shoe cleaning stations. We got our feet extremely wet in these stations, but I'm not sure if that was by design, or if that was all of the rain. Anyhow, hopefully it works, because Kauris are very majestic and awesome, and it would really stink if they died. The grove we hiked in only had one Kauri tree, but there were tons of other native plants, which were also beautiful and very cool. And it was a pretty lowkey hike, which definitely affected what happened next.

I think this was right before we took our hike? Or it might have been a stop along the way where we ate breakfast. In any case, look at how stormy it was!

One of the awesome trees along the path. I believe that the troll from Ernest Scared Stupid lives here.

The Kauri Tree! It was set back from the path a bit, so it was even bigger than it looks in this picture.

Part of this trail took us right on the edge of the beach. It was kinda slippery and muddy from all the rain, which had thankfully stopped at this point.

I think this was also part of the trail? Not totally sure, but look how pretty New Zealand is!

On our drive across the peninsula, we came across this nice little waterfall. It was very, very loud. 

The weather was still cloudy, but beginning to clear a bit, so we decided to keep driving around/across the peninsula to see if we could reach Cathedral Cove, which is one of those landmarks everyone says you should visit. And awesomeness, the weather kept clearing the closer we got! By the time we reached the cove parking area, it was a beautiful sunny day. We also got the last free parking space in the lot, which was thrilling. Cathedral Cove is a beautiful beach that is only accessible by foot or by boat. Because people wanted to keep it pristine, they didn't do any sort of development or roads down to the beach. There is a nice lookout near the parking lot, and then there's a trail that goes down to the beach. There are signs at the beginning of the trail saying it's about a 45 minute walk to Cathedral Cove, with other trails that branch off and have shorter walk times. I think the other trails were just naturey, or maybe led to other lookout points, but we don't know for sure, because we definitely didn't use them. We thought, hey, 45 minute walk isn't bad! Surely it won't really take that long because they definitely put a long time for slow walkers. We are not slow walkers! Ha! Let me tell you what, this was a herculean trial for us. First of all, when they say "walk" they don't mean a nice, gentle trail that is at most a very gentle incline. This trail was up and down, crazy steep both ways. Every time we went down a lot and thought we were surely approaching the beach, the trail suddenly went steeply back up! Because of knee issues, I struggle with steep downhill stretches (I call it my trick knee-the trick it does is that it tries to buckle when I am going down). And Leah struggles with the steep uphill! It was a hiking comedy of errors. Also, when they say 45 minutes, they mean it. We could not shave any time off that sucker. In fact, I'm pretty sure it took us longer. Also, because we misunderestimated the trail and thought it would be easy, breezy, beautiful covergirly, we did not take any water or snacks. Yes, we were truly stupid. The last stretch was a bunch of really steep staircases in a row. They would have been rough even if we hadn't just hiked for an hour, but at the end of that, it did not feel great. But at last, we made it to the beach! Our wimpyness really felt amplified by the amount of kind of old people and people carrying babies and stuff who were down there. Of course, maybe they also felt like they were going to die?

At the lookout point! Little did we know what horror was in store.

One of the lovely views along the hike. At least it was a pretty hike, even if it was also hideous.

Another view from the trail. If it had been ugly, we legit would have given up. 

This very cool tree was growing on a rock right in the middle of the trail. And though we did not know it at the time, it's right before the evil staircases that lead to the beach.

Cathedral Cove is truly breathtaking, which explains why so many people were there in spite of the tricky hike. I can't even imagine how many people would be there if it was easily accessible. We did see some people come onto the beach using kayaks while we were there. At the time, that seemed like maybe a better choice, but spoiler for later, kayaking is also hard. Anyhow, when we first got to the bottom of the stairs, we just took our shoes off and relaxed in the sand for a while. To the right, there was a small waterfall coming over the cliff onto the sand. There are a lot of standing rocks in the water that were probably at one time attached to the cliffs, and there's one giant rock arch with another part of the beach on the other side. It honestly reminded me of Arches National Park, with the arch and the standing stones that were arches once upon a time. Except there's also the ocean. We spent a lot of time down at the cove, splashing in the water, taking in the awesome beauty of the place, and relaxing. And truly, only part of that was because we were too tired to go back up the trail. But eventually, we got so thirsty and hungry that we felt it was time to head back up. Friends, going up was rough. I thought it would be easier because we knew what to expect, but it was harder because we were already so tired! And the up and down, up and down kept going! But we did eventually make it to the car park, and on the way, we say a tui in the wild! The very tui whose picture I posted in my blog about birds.

We did it! We are down on the beach! 

The little waterfall! It came down to the beach the easy way.

Maybe this small cave will be an arch one day. 

 We're so happy to be alive! 

 There I am in the arch. The tiny one on the right. It's a very big arch.

Leah was very brave-she went all the way into the water to touch the big rock!

We sat on these rocks and looked out at the water for a very long time.

Back at the top! We felt terrible! 

At this point, we ran into another problem-many places in New Zealand have multitudes of cafes, but not a lot of restaurants. This is fine at lunch time, but they all close at like 3:00, so if you want dinner or a late snack, you are out of luck! If I'm remembering right, this happened to us more than once. But it seemed exceptionally terrible this day because we were exhausted! We did eventually find a restaurant that was open, but it was definitely after we stopped at more than one place that turned out to be closed.

We had to drive back across the peninsula to reach our next stopping place/new place of abode in Thames. In my memory, it was about midnight when we got there, but it was still light out, so I know it wasn't that late. We were just very tired. We went to bed early and slept super late the next morning. I'm pretty sure we didn't get up until about 10! I never sleep that late, mostly because my dog wakes me up, and if he's not there, my bladder starts freaking out hours before that. But still, it was good to sleep. We hadn't really planned anything for this day either, but we had tentatively talked about going kayaking! We were able to find one that seemed pretty reasonably priced (based on absolutely no experience for me) that they told us on the phone would not be too hard for someone who had never kayaked/can't swim (me). We did have to drive back to the other side of the penisula again. We didn't plan super well on this-if we go again, we would stay on the other side so we wouldn't have to keep driving over there! 

Anyhow, when we got to the kayaking place, they got us hooked up with some wetsuits, which are hilariously tight. I felt like a sexy sea lion. We were going out with 3 German tourists and our guide, who was really awesome. She was a very cool Kiwi lady, and I could not figure out how old she was. She looked like she was probably mid to late 30s, but she had so much adventurous life experience! Anyhow, we were divided into 3 kayaks, and while I had no idea what I was doing, Leah basically is a pro, so she was in the back of our kayak and is definitely the reason that it moved at all. Also, at least one of the guys also had no idea what he was doing, which made me feel better about myself. At the beach where we were, there were a couple of little islands right off shore, which is where we were going on our kayaks. First we had to get into our kayaks, which was really tricky, because you basically have to run and jump into it like an Olympic bobsledder, but in the ocean. We did get about 30 seconds of instruction beforehand to teach us how to paddle, but I was not good at it. Leah was really the power behind us and also the person who was steering. I did my best, which was not very good, and also Leah kept having to tell me to adjust my paddle so that I was actually scooping water in a way that was helpful. Funnily enough, whether or not your paddle is moving the kayak, it still really hurts your arms/shoulders/muscles that I didn't realize I had. Well, I didn't have the muscles, which is why I struggled so much. But there technically are muscles in those places.

Kayaks! Leah said that other kayaks she has been in you're more down in it, but these we were kind of perched on top. We could have fallen out without too much trouble. 

The first island was called Donut Island, because there's a hole in the middle of it! We kayaked around to the back of the island, then we went through a tunnel into a pool that is in the middle of the island, open to the sky. That makes the whole process sound pretty simple, but it took a while and a lot of hard paddling to get through the waves and through the tunnel. But we succeeded like the total She-Ras we are. It was amazingly beautiful and magical. Our guide called it a mermaid pool, which is exactly how it looked. We were invited to jump in the water, but it was frigid, so we stayed in our kayak. Then we had to kayak back out the tunnel, around the island, to the next island over. I don't know if this one had a name. If it did, it wasn't catchy like Donut, so I don't remember it. Even though we had our little Donut break (lols, if only there had been pastries), by the time we got to the second island, my muscles were scream-crying. They were very unhappy with me and my life choices. Luckily, we had a nice break on this island where we could stretch our legs, walk around the beach a little, lie on the sand, and eat an orange. Which we did. But then our guide, after definitely not enough time resting, said we were going to go on a 10 minute hike if we wanted. 10 minutes doesn't sound bad, right? But remember the day before, when we had our 45 minute walk, which turned out to be a longer-than-that hike? The 10 minute hike was full on cliff climbing. If I have to push myself up with my legs and pull myself up with my hands, we are not hiking anymore! Also, we were not wearing shoes, so that was tough. Leah, because of her uphill problem, only went about 1/3 of the way up, which was a good choice. It was intense! The view was nice, and I felt very accomplished, but it was more work than accomplishment I think. Plus, going down was terrifying and hard. Still, go me! After that, we kayaked back to shore, and it was kind of easier, because the water was moving that way overall, but kind of harder because waves, and we were already so tired!

The tunnel! This is when we were inside. When we were outside, we were paddling and could not take pictures.

Our well-deserved rest in the mermaid pool.

While we were floating, that one German guy got in the water and immediately froze.

The water was so clear! We were somewhat concerned that we would hit those dark spots, which were actually giant rocks.

Looking straight up from the pool inside Donut Island.

The beach on the second island. I think that lump at the end is Donut Island.

Before we knew about the "hike" yet to come. The land on the right is the mainland.

The path up the hill. Ack! It really was as steep as it looks.

The view down from the top of the hike.

I did it! This is where our guide yelled at one of the guys for going too close to the edge for a selfie.

Back at the bottom, without falling down once!

Victory! The sexy sea lion, back on the main beach with the islands in the background. We went to the one on the right first, then the one in the middle.

Overall, kayaking was very cool, and if I did it often, I think my arms/shoulders region would be insane. But only doing it once in my whole life was very painful. After kayaking, we went and got lunch and also ice cream because we were living our best vacation life, then we decided to go to the Hot Water Beach! Hot Water Beach is a beach that has hot springs under it that filter up through the sand. The beach is only accessible for a few hours a day, about two hours before and after low tide. Because of that, it's pretty crowded during those hours, unless they're weird times of day probably. The day we went, low tide was at about 4:00 I think, so the beach was very full. You can rent little shovels or bring your own, and then you go dig holes in the sand that then fill up with hot water, like a hot tub. You have to be careful though, because if you're too far off to the side of the beach, the water that comes up is too cold to be comfortable, but if you're too close to the middle, the water is so hot it will burn the heck out of you. We tried digging in several different spots before we ended up commandeering an abandoned hole that was a pretty good mix of cold spring and hot spring. It was very relaxing to lie back in the sand and let the hot water seep up behind our backs. Until the cold water seeped up, then we had to get up and dig out some hot water again. Also, when people moved into the hole next to us, every time they dug, our wall started to collapse. It's a competitive place! If I ever go again, I would try to get there right at the start of the accessible time. You have to do more digging, but you could certainly get a better spot.

My silly starlet pose, in which I wear a swimsuit to look super foxy, and a sweater because I'm frigid.

Hot Water Beach! This was a pretty cold area, so we moved on from it. 

My turn with the shovel. I look like a crazy person. Shovel faster, Meredith!

Our hot tub! It was not a very deep tub, but it was good enough for us!

It was technically spring while we were there, and the weather was very nice, but when we left Hot Water Beach, I thought we would freeze to death. We tried to shower off the sand using the beach showers, but they were icy! So we ended up driving back across the peninsula very wet and sandy. This was also the day (I'm pretty sure) that the GPS betrayed us! At some point in the drive, it said we were going the wrong way and we needed to backtrack by about 20 miles! Which, rude, you're the one who took us on this road to begin with! The road we ended up on heading back to our Airbnb was the absolute worst. It was up in the mountains, so it made me very carsick, and it was unpaved, so it was really bumpy. Also narrow, so I felt like we might plunge to our deaths at any moment. Luckily we saw only 1 or 2 other cars the entire time we were on the road, so we were able to stick to the middle mostly. Also I was afraid that rock slides would kill us. Those awful roads would definitely be the worst part of living in Coromandel. I would never leave, because I would be too scared to.

When we got home and got the sand showered off (I found sand in my hair for several days after this), it was early bedtime, because we had a morning adventure planned for the next day.

Next time, on The Black Lung: we get back to our roots, if those roots happen to be old-timey blacksmithing.