Cathedral Cove In The Rain

02 September 2017 | Cathedral Cove | Hahei | Coromandel Peninsula

“I feel like I’ve wet myself, but I know I haven’t because it still feels cold.”

You’ve seen the photos of picturesque Cathedral Cove - smiling tourists, face bathing in sunlight, selfies capturing the scenery as well as the hundreds who walked it with you. This is more likely a scene in the summer months. My friend Jemma and I decided to bend the norm and check it out two days into New Zealand’s spring.

Going to tourist hot spots in the off-peak season has its pros and cons: Definite pro is that there are less people and sometimes it can be cheaper, con is that the weather is less predictable. Cue torrential downpour on the morning of our road trip - what was a four hour drive (via SH 25), turned into a lot more, and it felt like we were on the road a whole day. We realised now that the trip via Whangamata would have been quicker, but with the rain we had, I was glad not to be driving through those corners.

The view of Cathedral Cove from the viewing platform, by the carpark.

We arrived in Hahei early afternoon and with Google’s help, made our way to the carpark on the top of Grange Road (there is a footpath that goes to the top, so if you don’t have a car this is an option). The showers began to fall as we made our way to the viewing platforms. There were others already making their way back up, eager to make their way back to their cars to escape the rain. There was no mistaking that the clouds bringing more rain our way - though we had booked a motel which promised hot showers so it didn’t really bother us.

We did see quite a few people walking in jandals - which made sense in the rain and for the walk on the beach. The walk takes about 40 minutes each way on mostly paved tracks, with some stairs as you head down to the beach itself.

Peek through the trees on the way down, there's plenty of unique photo opportunities.

This is my friend, Jemma, who joined me on this trip. We were soaking from head to toe at this stage, but you couldn't tell him from her smile!

The biggest downpour happened in the most open section of the track. “I feel like I’ve wet myself, but I know I haven’t because it still feels cold.” That summed up our walk in the rain. As luck would have it, there was only one couple on the beach before us. See, you’ve got to take the wins in life. We left them to their selfie moments and walked to the far end of the beach. Instagram is full of pictures of Cathedral Cove basking in sunshine, why take another? Time to embrace our inner emo and find the beauty in nature’s moods.

Well that’s another one ticked off the list! We were unlucky with the weather that day, but lucky in the sense that our photos had no other humans in them either. For a tourist favourite like this one, that’s a rare sight indeed. Cathedral Cove in the spring is beautiful, moody and most certainly nature’s gift to us all, yes even in the rain.

Does anyone else think this looks like a giant bunch of parsley?

I've seen better postcard images, but since we were alone on the beach, I thought I would take one and add it to the collection.

This is one of my fave shots from the weekend...

These photos were taken on my Sony A6000, with both the 16-50mm and 55-120mm lenses. I only just got it the day before and still learning to use the manual features. I took these in RAW, and adjusted some of the brightness, but tried not to affect the natural colouring as I took them so you can see what I saw that day.