travels with an unlikely aunt: Coromandel

There is this peninsula on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. Called Coromandel. It sounds like a dance you should do to bell like music.

I had heard it was exceptional. I had heard it was where the people with money bought houses. Or had had houses for generations back. I had imagined it like Point Dume, or Cape Cod. Large houses with lawns.

I was wrong.

The Coromandel is a mountain range with a road that has been carved out on it’s outer edges and an occasional little pocket of flat where a small river drops down from high.

There are farms with fields high up on the slopes. There are bays full of boats. and fields full of cars and empty boat trailers waiting for the fishermen to return with their catch. When you get to Coromandel Town there is the bake shop with sausage rolls, mince pies and cheese and onion sandwiches where all the locals go. Then there are cafes serving poached eggs and Rosti potatoes for the visitors. Myself I had a cheese and onion sandwich and a cup of tea. There are laundromats, bait shops, hardware shops, butchers, more bait shops and a shop dedicated to hoses.

The views are beyond words. So I won’t try. I will just hand them over to you.