Hug a Coromandel kauri survivor. Only a few stands of the trees survived the area's extensive deforestation. Photo / Supplied
1. Horseriding near Colville Village
Spend a sunny afternoon - or several days - horse trekking at White Star sheep station near Colville. Host Belinda and her daughter are the sixth generation of family on this land. For longer stays there are bush lodges, cabins a backpackers
or caravans. Ten minutes up the road is the charming red general store, hall and school.
2. Long Bay beach, walk, camping grounds
Head out from Coromandel Town, past the fingers of wharf, up around the hilly bays of Wyuna Bay where Omaha-style mansions are cheek-by-jowl with quaint cottages. At the end of the road is Long Bay Motor Camp - old-timey with boat ramp, fishing charters and kayak hire, plenty of rock fishing spots and a line-up of cabins and caravans. Take a walk in one of the few remaining bits of kauri bush (the oldest is about 330 years old, the rest mere saplings of 100 or so), or the 15-minute walk along the beach to pretty Tucks Bay (back-to-basic camp there too). This is how we all used to holiday.
3. Kauri forest walk
Guide Sharni, who also drives the ferry bus and runs a native nursery, walks you through one of the few surviving stands of kauri, miraculously left on the Coromandel after the hills were cleared. Stop in at the Waiau falls, try to imagine how magnificent the bush would have been before settlers did their damage. Take a run across to Hot Water Beach - blissfully empty in winter.
