The Coromandel is a long peninsula in the North Island of New Zealand, named after a ship named after a coast in India. The ship was built in 1798 in Calcutta for the East India Company and named the ‘Cuvera’. She was bought by the Royal Navy in 1804 and converted into a warship as HMS Malabar. After action in the West Indies, she was converted two years later into an armed storeship. In 1815, she was re-named as HMS Coromandel, and was fitted out to transport convicts to Australia. To make this voyage less costly to the Exchequer, she was refitted again to enable her to carry a return cargo - in this case, timber from the tall straight kauri trees of New Zealand. In 1820, HMS Coromandel called at a small harbour on the North Island to load lumber, and gave its name to the harbour, the small town that developed around it and eventually the entire peninsula.
My wife and I visited Coromandel in 2010, as part of a family holiday. We drove from Rotorua, up the coast of the Bay of Plenty, and then across to Coromandel town by the unsurfaced (and rather exciting) 309 Road through the deepest wooded hills. We stayed in the Gold Miner’s Cottage on a hillside overlooking the vast Hauraki Gulf. The cottage had a secret: behind the sofa was a door, which opened into the old goldmine. A short way along, there were glow-worms.
Goldminers in the Coromandel have now been replaced by artists and people seeking an ‘alternative’ lifestyle. One such incomer in 1973 was an Englishman, Barry Brickell. He set up a pottery collective North of the Town, but found that he needed to fetch clay and timber (for fuel) from up the hill. The answer was to build a 15-inch gauge railway. This was slowly expanded over the next quarter of a century to become a public attraction. Now called the ‘Driving Creek Railway’, it zig-zags up the steep slope, through tunnels and over bridges through kauri plantations. The line ends high above the pottery at an large octagonal wooden building with vast wide views over the tops of trees and across the Gulf. More than 30,000 people visit the Railway each year, showing the enduring attraction of scenic railways - even ones built in the recent past. It is bizarre that New Zealand, like Great Britain, destroyed many of its scenic railway lines because they were not profitable. Perhaps it was just that the wrong people were running them.
There are many other things to see in the Coromandel, and details are at this website:
http://www.coromandelfun.co.nz/
My wife and I visited Coromandel in 2010, as part of a family holiday. We drove from Rotorua, up the coast of the Bay of Plenty, and then across to Coromandel town by the unsurfaced (and rather exciting) 309 Road through the deepest wooded hills. We stayed in the Gold Miner’s Cottage on a hillside overlooking the vast Hauraki Gulf. The cottage had a secret: behind the sofa was a door, which opened into the old goldmine. A short way along, there were glow-worms.
Goldminers in the Coromandel have now been replaced by artists and people seeking an ‘alternative’ lifestyle. One such incomer in 1973 was an Englishman, Barry Brickell. He set up a pottery collective North of the Town, but found that he needed to fetch clay and timber (for fuel) from up the hill. The answer was to build a 15-inch gauge railway. This was slowly expanded over the next quarter of a century to become a public attraction. Now called the ‘Driving Creek Railway’, it zig-zags up the steep slope, through tunnels and over bridges through kauri plantations. The line ends high above the pottery at an large octagonal wooden building with vast wide views over the tops of trees and across the Gulf. More than 30,000 people visit the Railway each year, showing the enduring attraction of scenic railways - even ones built in the recent past. It is bizarre that New Zealand, like Great Britain, destroyed many of its scenic railway lines because they were not profitable. Perhaps it was just that the wrong people were running them.
There are many other things to see in the Coromandel, and details are at this website:
http://www.coromandelfun.co.nz/
