After another morning jog we all hopped in the car and went to explore the famous 309 Road. This is an alternative route across the Coromandel Range from Coromandel Town to Whitianga. The road sounded interesting but we'd avoided it on our bikes since the middle 14km is unsealed.

Castle Rock: The first thing we did was to climb the Castle Rock. This is a 521m strangely shaped mountain in the middle of the peninsula. The logging track was closed so the walk was a bit longer than we were expecting, but the going was fairly easy until the final ascent which had a few difficult clambers over rocks! We all managed to get up to the top after some careful climbing. It was worth the effort as the views were magnificent. We could see both coasts of the peninsula and recognised many features such as the Matarangi pensinsula and a stack visible from our Whitianga balcony. There were a pair of climbers abseiling off one side of the summit, into the abyss. They were committing to a big multi-pitch climb - rather them than me!

Waiau Falls: These were some small but pretty waterfalls just up the road from the Castle Rock walk. I played around with longer exposures on the camera while Claire had a paddle and the brave Tony went for a swim! The fall looked pretty powerful and fun to swim against.

Kauri Grove: Next to the waterfalls was an extensive kauri grove. There were many large trees here including a siamese, or twin, tree. This is where two closely growing trees have fused together and then grown evenly. The grove was better than others we've seen because there were so many sizeable trees that you could really imagine what the forests must have looked like. The trees would once have totally dominated the forests, standing well above any of the other trees. It's a shame all those ship-builders got to them first!

We ended the day with some barbequed lamb and a fun trampoline session. All in all we had a great time in Whitianga during which time the weather got better and better - less humid, warmer and sunnier.