March 10, 2023

This is the last full day of our trip. Theresa and I took a walk before the rain fell. We walked about town, eventually sitting down at the Little Blue Kitchen for breakfast. We split a breakfast sandwich, and each enjoyed chai and cacao lattes. Perfect little morning out here in Hahei.

We walked back to our unit where we started a load of laundry and lounged around while the sprinkles fell. With most of the things we had planned to do either closed or inaccessible, Theresa and I drove up to the The Lost Spring, a spa in Whitianga while Josh explored more of Hahei.

The Lost Spa had a wonderful ambience with 3 pools of varying warmth we could enjoy. It beat the Polynesian Spa in Rotorua in experience, although I don’t think these were mineral pools like the Polynesian’s were. We enjoyed rotating pools to keep from getting too hot or too cold and left when our two hours were up.

On our way back, we stopped at a couple roadside fruit stands that line many of the roads in NZ. We picked up a small container of fresh blueberries. Everything else looking picked over or unlikely to be eaten in our last few hours. We were hoping for more delicious plums.

Back in Hahei, we all walked down to The Coromandel Brewing Company for dinner. We weren’t there for five minutes before the rain cut loose. Lucky timing. We sat under the porch and enjoyed cauliflower tacos, fries and drinks. One last outing before the airport in the morning. We also talked through strategies in case there were new landslides, though there wasn’t a lot we could do except wait and see.

We went back and packed up while finishing off the wine and playing guessing games of songs and bands. Somehow neither Theresa nor Josh has ever heard the song “Every little thing she does is magic” 😳🤨 Monsters.

As I laid in bed, I could hear another downpour.