WEEKEND’S STORY

Cathedral Cove Coromandel, one of the Narnia movie set

This weekend I spent three days, Friday to Monday in Cooks Beach. We were  invited by our English teacher David who has a holiday house over there. He is a Kiwi, so that was not only holiday but also a chance where we could still learn and improve our English.

We had 5, so we decided to use two cars, Yolus, Alan and Doan drove their own car. I and David with David’s car. Actually it took only about 1-2- hours from Auckland to Cooks Beach, but because the traffic was so heavy that’s why it took more than 2 hours.

Along the way to the Cooks beach, David explained to me a lot of things that I had never heard before and I thought that was very interesting, useful and meaningful for my English improvement. I was lucky because I was in the same car with the English native speaker because when we talked with English he made some correction on my English, particularly about my grammar and pronunciation.

It was getting dark when we arrived in David’s holiday house. The house itself was an old house which they bought from the farmer family in around 1960. It has 5 bedroom. With vast garden, there was no flower, just a few of fruit trees. The scenery from the house was so beautiful because it was close to the beach which we could reach only 5 minutes.

Buffalo Beach

On Saturday, I woke up little bit early and I and Alan decided to walk, we spent 2 hours for this activity. We walked up to the top of the hill where Captain Cooks observed the mercury and Venus in 1769. It was so amazing because from the top of this hill I could see all the cooks beach and Lonely beach. When we went down, we also had a look to lonely beach because I was curious with it’s name. My question and my curiosity were answered when we arrived there. It was a hidden and beautiful beach with a small space and it was between two hills that’s why they called it lonely beach. 

After breakfast we went to Coromandel to see the Cathedral Cove. It was beach where The famous Narnia movie was filmed. I has planned to visit this place since the first time I heard it from my friend. I have seen the narnia movie, that’s why I also wanted to see place were it was filmed.

Vineyard

It took about 15-20 minutes from Cooks beach to Coromandel. When we arrived, there had been many people. From the car park it took 40 minutes by walk to get the Cathedral cove. As many people said, this beach was so beautiful. There was a cave where we could walk trough to the other side. The sea was little bit cold but so so nice for swimming. I took a picture and I changed my clothes for swim. I swum to the rock near the beach and then jumped from the top of the rock in to the water, I had done the same jumping when I was in elementary school, so that was the first jumping after long time, it was difficult but nice and remarkable.

On Sunday we attended mass at the local Church near Whitianga. We took ferry to this city, it was the short way to that city. Another option was walked around, which mean it would take more than 40 minutes. After mass we had a look around the city and also we went to buffalo beach. Strange name? Yeah..it was named from a ship named Buffalo that crushed at that sea long time ago. We also went to the hill which was used by Maori people to defense and protect their self from their enemy when there was battle tribe. It was long time ago but  we still can see the footprint until today.

In the afternoon we went to the hot water beach. It was another beach that close to our place, it took 20 minutes to get this place. Hot water beach renowned for the hot water pool that can be dug from the sands between low and mid tide in which you can bathe. This beach were crowded by many people. At the beginning it was difficult to find the place where we could dig but finally we found it. We also went to art gallery near the beach.

Art Gallery

On Monday which was our last day we went to the vineyard near David’s house. It was a private vineyard. I met some laborers, one of them was a girl from Germany who would work there for  a month, she had been there for two weeks, when she finished she would go for travel. Looking at them, I remembered my experience when I was in University, on our holiday we always spent some of our time for social work, it was hard but fun because we could help those who need our help.

Before we went back home, we cleaned all the house, we vacuumed the carpet and cut down the grass with the machine that seems like a car. When Yolus drove it, he hit the stairs near the garden, but that’s ok, because it was a part from learning process. After we made sure that everything were clean we had our lunch and then we went back home. We arrived at home safely around 5.