The Bach at Waipu Cove

luvinspud

February 16th - 20th, 2024

Sometimes we have to take some time out and catch up on some homeschooling. We chose to spend a little extra time in Waipu, a beach town a couple hours north of Auckland. James and Sheena have a bach (pronounced batch - a beach house or holiday home) in Waipu Cove and invited us to enjoy it during our travels. It made for the perfect getaway . . . a respite from being on the road and having to pack and unpack every couple of days. 

The first couple of days we just chillaxed and went to the beach and did a nice coastal walk. Then we caught up on some homeschooling while we had some reliable Wifi. Getting on wifi has not been much of an issue, but using our phones here has. Our own network and hotspots are not very good. It's very deceiving - I will have 4 bars LTE but have no network connection or it totally sucks, taking a long time to access anything. Or it will show 1 bar of 5G and feel like dial-up! We are just glad that we have been able to use the wifi at accomodations as we travel around. 

FYI - one note on Wifi at hotels here. They seem to control the use of their wifi with these token codes. Upon check in you usually get a code that gives you a certain amount of time or bandwidth per device. It can work great or it can be a pain in the ass. If you're trying to download or stream a movie, then it sucks - slow as molasses and it runs out before it's fully downloaded. If you're just making reservations for the next location, you're fine. The reception office has always been nice to us though. When we mention that we are homeschooling, they hand us a few more of the codes to help us out. Sweet as!

 

Our first beach walk in Aotearoa New Zealand on Waipu Beach.
Eating at the Waipu Cove Restaurant. Very convenient and right down the street from us.
Start of the Waipu Coastal Trail. We probably walked about a mile to get to the trailhead. Oops. Kids didn't mind. . Ha!!!
We didn't do the full 2 km but we were walking for a good hour. . . I thought it was a beautiful walk.
Apparently this country is very weedy!
On the Waipu Coastal walk.
Alan McKenzie, the man who had the idea of the Waipu Coastal Trail.
Resting on the Coastal Trail.
More weeds!
AND more weeds!
Pancake rocks are cool!
This is a funny road sign we see everywhere. Kind of says it all. . . Watch Out! Stop! Beware!
Another day at the beach.

This article was updated on March 12, 2024