@@JenniferLupine glad you like the quick look at one of NZ’s older coastal towns and of course these days an incredibly popular holiday spot. Back in my flatting days (the 70’s) we , my flatmates and I would come over here with our tents for a very affordable break from Auckland!! Although fair to say it’s a lot more trendy now than it was back then 😀

@@Chris-NZ 😄

@@JenniferLupine hi, glad you enjoyed the drive Jennifer😀. Matamata and neighbouring Cambridge are thriving at present in large part I’m sure due to the explosion in the construction of retirement villages in both places. As in most western countries we have an ever expanding retiring boomer population happy to downsize and move away from places like Auckland which isn’t so far away. There is a lot to like about the Waikato with its nice English deciduous trees, rural outlook & relaxed lifestyle and yet not far from a number of bigger centres.

@@Chris-NZ Looks like a great place to retire!! Steve and I have about 5 years to go! Haha 👌😄

@@JenniferLupine where you might retire could depend on the November election 😀

@@peterfritzphoto its actually worse than I described as Jim was killed in the same car in which his dad was in the passenger seat. His dad was never the same person, in fact none of us were , he had four children, two brothers and a sister . His brother was following and I in my role where I was working had to deal with the police fatal report. People don’t realise how the ripples spread out from sudden especially young lives being lost. Thanks for those comments Peter. I can tell from the way you take the pictures of your son how much he means to you.

@@Chris-NZ Oh, no… That’s devastating on a whole different scale. His poor, poor dad. And you, also. I feel for all of you. I’m beyond sorry.

Hi, Glad you enjoyed the brief drive through Matamata. Good luck with your channel you are doing well with over 200 subs in five months. I’ve been following a couple of boating channels in Brazil, one is Sailing Yaba, and the other was Odd life Crafting , very good channels 😀

Glad you enjoyed the ride 😀

@@peterfritzphoto thanks Peter, the Transapline is definitely on my highly recommended list . It follows the road route for some of the way and of course there is the 8km Otira tunnel which is over 100 years old and at a grade of 1:33 !! Certainly a great day out for my dad and I , very popular you need to book . My dad was quite the photographer taking a tiny folding Vest Pocket camera with him to WW2 (he was a pilot) , I still have that camera as you’d understand a valuable family piece. He was also into 8mm movies so as you can imagine my sister and I have quite the collection of slides and 8mm movies and I suspect by the time we could walk were pretty good at “taking directions” 😀. Anyway glad you enjoyed these, if you are doing an extended road trip here put Taranaki on your to do list . I have a number of videos about the area I had friends there for five decades , I think my most recent was in April this year called “Last Trip to Taranaki”.

@@Chris-NZ It must have been quite the commitment back in the day to shoot 8mm film, considering the cost and equipment required.

Thanks Peter, the alpine parts of the South Island are spectacular and I’d try and get into them at least once while visiting my folks in Christchurch. I think most of the images here were taken in August when there is snow but not so much the roads get closed or you need chains 😀. My folks passed away some years back and I haven’t been down since but there are a few places I’d like to take a look at namely Dunedin and the coast to the south of there, I’ve pretty much been everywhere else😀

@@Chris-NZ Prior to my Queenstown visit, I'd only seen Christchurch and the areas around the Bay of Islands. I definitely need to see a LOT more of NZ.

Glad you enjoyed the tour , some of my other South Island videos also have places where Peter Jackson did some filming. 😀

@@changstravel Hi, yes the Coromandel has many beautiful beaches but the fact of the matter is that being an island nation we have a lot of beautiful beaches and coastline 😀

@@changstravel hi, glad you enjoyed the drive. Matamata is similar to many of our small rural towns with the difference it is growing quite rapidly 😀.

@@tonymckeage1028 Thanks Tony I’ll have to check that out next time I’m down, always good to have a recommendation 😀

Thanks a lot 😀

Hi Kylie, I’m sure you would find it interesting especially if you’ve seen the Lord of Rings films😀

@@IamaDutch-Kiwi Hi Anita, I’m not entirely sure why my Google Earth Studio zooooooms are better than yours. I do find their default speed ( clip length) a bit short , I think its five seconds so I always make it longer so its slower thus more frames and probably smoother. We have fibre internet but not sure the extra speed makes any difference except maybe they throw a bigger better resolution file at me , but that’s pure conjecture 😀. Glad you liked the Matamata vid, my “foster” sister lives there so I’ve spent a reasonable amount of time there over the last few years especially after her brother ( my best mate from primary school) died in 2008. I quite enjoy trying to match those old photos, I had quite a lot of success in my Devonport vid which I think you’ve seen already 😀

Thanks Bruce, I would have liked to have found more old images but I thought it was cool that at least one building is still very recognisable 😀 . I did a video 10 months ago called “Devonport Museum” where I tired to match a number of old images with the present day.

Hi there , yes very observant of you , indeed the info centre is very “hobbit” in its theme, top marks 😀😀

Thanks a lot , Matamata is quite similar in appearance 😢to a number of smaller town in rural Waikato. 😀

Hi Anna , thanks a lot . There is a lot of history (for us 😀) in this area starting with the taking of native trees in the area for ship masts and ship building generally , then there was the gold rush nearby and farming. The early settlers to the area planted a lot of English deciduous trees and in the autumn the Waikato has a lot more colour than up here in Auckland. Its a bit chilly here (mid winter) around 14 degrees at midday, an 6 or 7 at night , personally I prefer that to our humid summers !!

@@maxgrey435 Hi Max , hope you are well. The coromandel is pretty nice, imagine the West Coast with sandy beaches, ten degrees warmer and no sandflies 😀

@@Chris-NZ heaven mate - sandflies down here in the billions

@@potater6163 Cool idea, but if you are in New Plymouth there are certain truckloads of less busy backroads with nice curves under the mountain. I used to shoot a lot of car and motorcycle film there in the 1970’s. As for State Highway 3 and areas around NP take a look at the video I made a few weeks back titled “my last trip to Taranaki..in a while”.

@@chilleats7024 hi, glad you liked the market.😀. There are some very delectable cakes in that collection, he said speaking from experience 😀

Hey thanks a lot , the Coromandel is a great place to visit any season although it is most popular in our summer when the population swells considerably 😀

1Hi Anna, thanks for those kind words , yes the Coromandel is extremely pretty with so many beaches and beautiful native bush. Back in my (much) younger days I used to come here camping and obviously the area has become more a little more populated and dare I say it “up market” it still has that laid back charm and an easy ability to find a pristine beach all to yourself. 😀 ah yes the music , a little bit of that tropical beach vibe 😀 somehow felt appropriate .

Hi , glad you enjoyed the drive 😀

Hi Jennifer , glad you enjoyed the quick look at a tiny part of the Coromandel . I’m not sure if we have got similar plants to Hawaii, some maybe in the far north but Hawaii sits at 20degrees north while NZ is in a range of 34 south to 47 degrees south so quite a different climate but we do grow a lot of Hibiscus quite successfully here in Auckland ( 36degrees South) . It might have been my music that sent you off down the Hawaii rabbit hole 😀 .

I know that feeling, drove it many times in my exuberant years (the 1970's) in my Mini Clubman 1100 as well as a passenger in my mates Mini (the picture in the video) as well as on a variety of motorbikes in the same period. Lets face it pretty hard to do over 100 except in short bursts - arh - those were the days 😀 not a "black and white" to be seen.😀. Glad you enjoyed the vid , soon the trip will be as boring as every other NZTA road of "national significance" , in this case just shifting the (few) crashes to the next crappy spot . .

@@IamaDutch-Kiwi Glad I’ve got you in “tourist” mode. It’s been years since I spent time in the Coromandel despite its relative proximity . The low winter sun really does wonders for backlighting the waves and the step beaches mean at some parts of the tide the waves seem to build and dump really close to you even without the benefit of telephoto compression 😀, reminds me a lot of Birdlings Flat beach in Canterbury although thats stony . As for youtube and its random comment removal or just vaporisation into thin air I find it very irritating. Actually I suggest you take a look at Parley Revival the next episode take them into Doubtful Sound while on their NZ Circumnavigation- I’d highly recommend a viewing of Colin’s back catalogue, as an Kiwi he’s a heck of an “ambassador” for NZ.

@@NorwayHikesTrails Hi , thanks a lot . Its a beautiful coast , in December those coastal tree are a mass of crimson flowers 😀

Hi Simon and Beth, glad you enjoyed the drive along some of the Coromandels beautiful coastline. It’s magical in the winter with the low sun.

Hi Simon and Beth, glad you enjoyed the brief tour. 😀

@@chilleats7024 Hi , glad you liked the coastal tour . That fluffy flower is most probably Pampas which is introduced, it is strikingly similar to our native ToeToe and often confused however Pampas flowers January to June while ToeToe flowers September to January . I filmed these clips in May . Nevertheless both are spectacular, pampas can be a light pink which is pretty nice. 😀

@@Chris-NZ Thanks for sharing, they are quite an amazing roadside flower. 👍

@@wendingourway hi, thanks a lot😀 it’s very pretty and as a bonus at Christmas time all those coastal Pohutukawa trees flower bright red 😀

Hey thanks a lot, it’s a beautiful coastline especially in the winter with the low sun backlighting the waves 😀

Hey thanks. That’s our annual Christmas treat. 😀

Glad you enjoyed the visit 😀

Hi, glad you liked the tour. Whitianga definitely has a tropical look and a very laid-back feel especially in the off season (winter) , as a local I quite like visiting places like this away from the holiday season you get more of a feel for how it is as a local. It was gold, Kauri gum and logging the native trees that brought prosperity to the Coromandel initially now its tourism and deep sea fish as you will have seen with all the boats 😀

@@Chris-NZ Interesting history and majestic setting. Nice tour, thanks for sharing 👍👍

Hi Jennifer, definitely a cool place to holiday , especially in the off-season and there are certainly plenty of retirees in the general area if the grey hair in the supermarket is anything to go by 😀, I was there with my wife and her folks (86 and 92) so certainly contributing to the grey !!

Definitely a holiday town 😀

Hi, thanks a lot😀

For everyone everything

Very definitely a nice place for a holiday or just to live !!

Glad you enjoyed the drive , i was definitely going for a beachy vibe 😀

Hi, it certainly has been a while since I was over in the coromandel myself, if you liked this video you’ll definitely like the one in two weeks 😀

Hi, probably , I suspect they never come on the open market, just sold word of mouth or passed down through families like a lot of holiday homes. I had a look on the local RealEstate site and there is nothing of that sort for sale . An ordinary home there seems to average out at around C$750,000 (realestate in NZ is stupid expensive.)

hi, Glad you like the short tour 😀

Hi Anna , definitely a pretty little town with an interesting history 😀