LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE
Metro Magazine
August, 2005
Where the air feels distilled by the bush and the soundtrack is courtesy of the tuis. Owner David Foreman has built two cottages on a sliver of family land beside the Driving Creek stream in Coromandel township - light airy structures, beautifully constructed, with a double bedroom downstairs and an attic bedroom upstairs.The front windows over look the stream and the regenerated bush. The cottages are furnished with a pair of very comfortable couches, a lovely old table with bentwood chairs and flax mats on the floor: the essence of Coromandel style.
Distance from Auckland:
Two and a half hours
If you do one thing when you are at Driving Creek Villa:
Take a trip on potter Barry Brickell's eccentric narrow-gage
Driving Creek Railway. brickell started the railway - which crosses
two spirals and three tunnels, all painstakingly built by hand
- in 1974 to carry wood and clay down from the hills to his studio
on the flat.
Now, it's a one hour-long trip through regenerating native bush
up to the "Eye-full Tower", with its view over Coromandel
and the islands of Te Kouma Harbour, floating in the sea.
