Horse Riding

Horse Riding at Rangihau Ranch is a favourite activity with almost all of our students. There you will be matched with a horse the right size for you, and taken on a leisurely ride through the beautiful local farmland. Basic riding instruction is given and the horses are quiet and easy to handle.
On a nice day the views are stunning as the trek normally takes us high into the hills from where we can look right out across the valley that runs down to Whitianga some 10 km away.

309 Kauri Trees

Over 100 years ago the whole of the Coromandel Peninsula was covered by vast Kauri forests. These Kauris are the largest trees in the wonderful New Zealand native bush. The biggest of them were up to 7 mt in diameter and may have been over 3000 years old. However a sustained Kauri logging industry by early settlers saw almost all of these trees cut down. The beautiful golden timber was valuable especially for boat building and today is prized for furniture making, although all our remaining Kauri are now protected.

Luckily, not too far from Whitianga on the old 309 Road to Coromandel Town there is a small grove of these great trees still standing. These mature trees are some 600 years old, and while they can still get a lot bigger they do give us a good indication of how this area must have looked 120 years ago.

Archery

Archery is just one of the activities that many of our students experience, often for the very first time, when they are with us. We get some expert tuition and many of the students are surprisingly good once they have had a little practice. There are several targets and bows of different strengths to suit everybody.

We normally will have a small competition at archery and often we will end up with the boys versus the girls which is always fun.

Cave Cruzer

The Cave Cruzer is a commercial boat trip that operates out of Whitianga. Our normal trip with these guys is to head across to the northern side of Mercucy Bay and into the Waitaia Cave. This is a large cave that the boat can easily enter. It is a musical trip and the tour operator plays several different instruments inside the cave where they really sound great.

When numbers allow we will split the group, and half will take the boat while the rest take a bush hike in to a nearby beach. The two groups then swap over on the beach and both get to enjoy the whole experience.

Cathedral Cove

Cathedral Cove is on the eastern side of the peninsula close to Hahei. It is one of our most popular tourist attractions and in the summer can be visited by up to 7000 people a week. Our activities groups will often do the 40 minute walk in to this beautiful spot for a swim and a picnic. We also sometimes visit it during boat trips we do, and sometime even kayak in. Cathedral Cove is not far from Whitianga and is one of those places every student should visit while they are with us. A majestic cave joins two beautiful beaches and it is not uncommon to see couples choosing this place to get married

In this group of photos we have included one of 14 people sitting on the ledge above the beach. Can anyone name all 14 people?? and who took the photo??