Hahei Beach.

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We had a family weekend at a rented bach (from bachelor pad apparently) at Hahei Beach (Har High) on the Coromandel Peninsular.

From the deck, facing north.



90 degrees, that's east.



Walk to the end of the back yard - it's straight down.




On the beach, that's the house up there.



Red sky at night, shepards delight. Yeah nah, it cut up rough over night.



The coast of New Zealand is the home of the Pohutukawa, sometimes called the New Zealand Xmas tree, because it is covered in red flowers by Xmas time. They hang on cliffs and anywhere they can grow, very hardy, but at the moment threatened by myrtle rust.



A bit of folding here. The next bay around (south) is called Hot Water Beach - you dig holes in the sand and make yourself a nice hot pool. I could smell the familiar smell of volcanic activity, so there is something happening close to here. I have a story about Hot Water Beach.



Hanging right over the cliff...and sometimes falling down.


Up on a track looking along the beach.


The patch of grass on the point is the back yard of the house.



Big waves out there.


A huge pohutukawa on someones front yard, many hundreds of years to get to this size.
 
You do have a gorgeous country Silk...it's beautiful, but a bit "edgy" in the hot spots, smells, and vents...fenced off areas in parks where a drunk could boil to death.

we saw some of those red flowers when we were there in January...very pretty...slippery under tyre 'though.
 
“Red sky at night, shepards delight. Yeah nah, it cut up rough over night.”



Isn’t that reversed when south of the equator?

Beautiful pics Silk. I would love to visit New Zealand someday.
 
Happy Thanksgiving to a valued ally, even if you don't observe Thanksgiving. In today's world we need all the friends we can find and hold on to. Don't give up on us just yet. Beautiful country.
 
Got the pronunciation wrong, should be Hah high - we don't do the R here, I could just hear some American rolling the R.
 
Looks really nice. I'm jealous of the temps. Already had snow, and after a brief warm up and respite this week, it will be months of cold and snow.
 
Beach is in the Kiwi DNA - no one is far from a beach, and everyone has spent time at one. In the '50's and '60's, when NZ was an equaltarian society, a single income family, dad working in a factory or pumping gas at the service station, mum at home making clothes and cooking, they were able to buy a section at the beach, and go down on weekends and build the bach. We didn't need to, my father's family home was on the beach front, a small comunity on the outskirts of Auckland, and now an inner suburb. All my holidays and nearly every weekend was spent there, my childhood memories are from the beach, not the suburb we lived in. My wife's family used to take their boat to Rangitoto Island, moor in the bay and row to a family owned bach. I had a beach section in the late '70's, we used to go down and stay in my caravan on weekends. When our girls were small we lived on an island, the island life...a small comunity and beaches everywhere. They grew up there, and my daughter wanted to give her daughter a taste of that life, seeing as it's not something normal people can do anymore. Valuations of Waiheke Island came in today, the average house price is a million dollars, Onetangi Beach where we lived is 1.3 million. We bought a section and built a house for a total of $67,000. Hind sight, I'd rather have had foresight....
 
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Silk,
no point being Captain HindSight.

If I'd have kept every one of my Toranas, I'd be able to buy those properties.

If I'd bought that Phase 3 GTHO in 1987...
 
Yeah, who would've thought those ordinary cars and bikes, or beach and island properties would be unaffordable these days.

The property ended at the deck, the few metres to the cliff is public land, part of a walkway...The Queen's Chain. Those that did walk past us lolling on the deck just thought we owned the place.
 
northern-hot-spots-package.jpeg


Dig a hole and it will fill up with hot water...sometimes too hot.

My story about Hot Water Beach. In 1975 there was almost nothing there, a shop and some shacks. A friend at the time (no longer, the usual story, it's 40 years gone, but not for him) and I spent a week down there on old BSA singles, just sleeping on the beaches and living off the land..or trying to. We got to Hot Water Beach and rode down it (all beaches in NZ are considered public roads, and speed limits apply, and road rules
). We got around that outcrop of rock to the right in that picture, and found a cave, right where the photographer is standing. We cooked up a meal and spent the night in the cave.

When we got up in the morning the tide was in and we couldn't get out, so we headed up the beach the other way. It was really heavy going in the soft sand, dragging these 400lb bikes through it. We came across a fence, and lifted our bikes over it, headed across the paddocks, out a farm gate and onto the road. We were totally knackered, so decided to go back to the store for a cold drink and icecream. I was a bit angry and thrashed my bike up the hill, over revved with the Goldstar cams and it died. We towed it up the rest of the way with the other bike, coasted down the hill and stopped at the shop. I pulled the head off outside the shop ( a screwdriver, and a double ended openender is all you need) and found a broken valve spring and bent inlet valve.

The shop owner had some tin sheds over the road he rented out in summer, so he let us use one. My mate headed back to Auckland and came back that night with another valve and valve spring. The reason we were down there was he had a court case, and it was the next day, so he took off and I put my bike back together. No tools, compressing valve springs by hand and fitting the keepers. I was riding through Thames as he came out of court. pretty normal stuff for us back then.
 
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