About Coromandel

The Coromandel Peninsula lies east of Auckland, on the other side of the Hauraki Gulf, and has an estimated population of just under 27,000 people in the combined Thames and Coromandel Districts. Rustic and unspoiled, the Coromandel is one of New Zealand's best-loved holiday destinations with easy access from Auckland.

The rugged volcanic hills are cloaked in native rainforest, and there are more than 400 kilometres of spectacular coastline, with magnificent white sand beaches. The Coromandel is a place where bush and beach are both easily accessible. In the same day, you can experience the blue dazzle of the Pacific Ocean and calming greenness of the kauri forest.

The tangata whenua Iwi of the Coromandel Peninsula are Ngati Hauraki, who trace their lineage to the canoes of Tainui, Te Arawa, Mataatua and Matawhaorua. When Cook first sailed into the Hauraki Gulf in 1769, he sailed up what he named the Firth of Thames – the stretch of water separating the peninsula from the Auckland isthmus. At the head of the river, he discovered and disembarked to explore massive forests of kahikatea. Since that time, all but a few lonely stands in farm paddocks have disappeared, as the Hauraki Plains have been turned into productive dairy farming land. The story in the Coromandel has been similar, but for different reasons. With the influx of pakeha settlers, the value of the abundant kauri forests was soon realised, and 195,000 hectares of native forest (a billion feet of timber) were cut to feed the insatiable needs of the British navy. Then gold was discovered, and the rapid influx of miners and speculators soon decimated the landholdings of the tangata whenua and led to a huge building boom. Towards the end of the last century Thames (the main commercial town on the Peninsula was the largest centre of population in New Zealand with 18,000 inhabitants and well over 100 hotels and three theatres. huge.

The Coromandel community has a high proportion of environmentally aware residents. The regaion attracts a large population of artists and creative thinkers, as well as the innumerable Kiwi characters filled with rustic ingenuity and creative insights.

Looming large in this community is undoubtedly Barry Brickell, whose Driving Creek railway and Potteries, just North of the Coromandel township is one of New Zealand's most innovative creations. New Zealand's only narrow-gauge mountain railway along with a working pottery has been carved out of the Coromandel mountainside by Barry himself Barry himself over a lifetime of dedicated and sustained conservation work. A
wildlife sanctuary has also been established adjacent to the Potteries for the preservation of the endangered native wildlife species. It is truly a shining example of the spirit that pervades the Coromandel. Read Barry's Coromandel Peninsula History outline for visitors.

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