Weekend in the Coromandel

It was Charlie and Kieran's last weekend in New Zealand so we all headed off to a quiet campsite just off the beach on the Coromandel for a weekend of surfing and beach fun. Unfortunately I had to work on friday night till 10pm (hopefully my last ever medical house officer on-call, although I did say that 2 years ago!) so we headed over on saturday morning.
So saturday morning after getting up early (and after James had played Alex on Xbox live) we headed over to Opoutere on the Coromandel. We arrived around midday to find Sal, Si, Charlie, Kieran and Charlies dad Peter all waiting for us before hitting the beach. After a full afternoon of surfing, volleyball and relaxing on the beach we went into Whangamata to pick up food for a BBQ and grab a sneaky drink in a rather odd bar/ cafe. We had a very successful BBQ, however it wouldn't be a complete evening without Si taking part in a bit of Gemma bating (of which I always seem so good at walking in to!) A few bottles of wine later and we all turned in for the night.

Sunday morning was certainly the least expected wake up call. We got woken up at 07:50 by the campsite owner telling us an 8.8 magnitude earthquake had just hit Chile and a tsunami was expected to hit in 30mins. Always nice to have plenty of warning! Minor drama's followed as Charlie's dad had gone out for an early morning walk without a phone completely unaware of the likely tsunami and Kieran's realisation that he and Charlie were due to fly into Santiago in 24hours! So that morning we spend off the beach on higher ground hoping we were protected from any high waves, eating pancakes and entertaining si with a rugby ball.

After all that waiting and drama we finally heard at 12.30 that the tsunami had passed and the waves had only hit NZ at a grand size of 30cm! Since it was already getting late and Charlie had to drop her dad off in Tauranga for 3pm we all decided to head home. Since Charlie and Kieran were due to spend the night with us before heading off to Chile, Sal and Si decided to come up to Auckland for the evening and have a nice BBQ all together before saying goodbye. It was a lovely evening and really sad to see Charlie and Kieran leave. (incase you were wondering they managed to sort out there flights and flew via Sydney where they are spending the week on Manley beach surfing before flying out to Buenos Aires, completely bypassing Chile)