Day 169 Pokekohe, Orere Point

Kathy’s dentist appointment wasn’t until 1:15PM so we didn’t leave Port Waikato until noon.  We just relaxed and enjoyed the morning.  The trip to Pokekohe was successful, the dentist glued Kathy back together and we were having coffee in no time.  As we were enjoying our break we met and chatted with a couple that lived in the area.  Matt and Sheila are very nice people who were very helpful with suggestions of things to do in the area.  It was Matt who told us about Great Barrier Island, which we hope to get over to, time permitting. 



Matt & Sheila



We said goodbye to Matt and Sheila and headed off on a drive that Matt showed us.  The first part was over ground we had covered before as we were heading towards the Coromandel.  Just prior to reaching the Coromandel we turned towards Miranda and the Miranda Hot Springs.  We headed in for a soak but decided against it as three buses of school kids had just arrived, it was a little crowded.  So we carried on with our new destination being the Miranda Shorebird Center.  There is a hide available for people to watch the birds as them come in to feed.  The best time is close to high tide and we were fortunate enough to time it just about right.  We stopped and hiked out to the hide and settled in to wait for the birds.  We met 3 other couples at the hide which made for a lot of storytelling about each other’s travels.  We spent quite a fair amount of time watching the tide come in, watching the birds and more importantly waiting for the rain to stop so we could get back to the van without getting wet.

The most amazing aspect of our visit to the hide was the number of birds.  The more the tide came in the more birds arrived.  They just kept coming in waves.   We saw godwits, oyster catchers, dotterels, royal spoonbills, white herons, red billed gulls, pied stilt and some we couldn’t recognize. 

We left the bird hide and continued along the coast of the Firth of Thames which is appropriately named the Bird Coast.  It was a very pretty drive.

We had been invited to spend the night at Matt and Sheila’s farm and we thought that we would finish the drive and do just that.  However, we spent so much time bird watching that we barely reached the halfway point.  We were close to the Orere Point Holiday Park so we pulled in, secured a site and settled in for the night.