NZ - Coromandel Peninsular

This was our last day in New Zealand, so we wanted to make the most of it, so headed to Coromandel Peninsular where they had a hot water beach – typically it was raining, but not enough to deter us ;)

First, we went for an energetic 2 hour walk along the cliffs to see Cathedral Cove and the various rock formations.

You can only go to Hot Water Beach at certain times – 2 hours either side of low tide. At this time, the natural hot springs filter through to the beach surface and you can hire a spade, dig a hole, which then fills with warm water you can sit in. We were worried we might not be able to find the right spot where the hot springs were, but as it turned out, the problem was finding the space not location. The beach was pretty crowded, as the hot water springs are only 50 meters wide so everyone was crammed in.

We looked at which people looked the warmest, and then started digging. You have to be quite particular about where you dig, as one spot can be cool water but 50cm to the right can be scalding. Lazily, we thought we’d take one of the pre-dug empty holes, but it soon became clear why these were empty as they were cold. We then dug our own baby hole where we could find a space, and got a bit warmer. Our timing was good, and luckily people in a giant pre-dug hole were leaving and offered us their place. No sooner had we jumped in, then about 3 other couples jumped in and one women was hogging the warmest spot – it was a bit hot for her though and she turned lobster pink ;) It wasn’t long after that we too began to simmer – in the main stream it was really hot.

We could hear the occasional yelp - as the tide was coming in big waves were breaking down the barriers to the front line of holes, so people were getting cold ocean water in their holes ;)

After being here for a fair while, we too had turned lobster pink and a bit wrinkly. To cool down Marc charged into the ocean, crashing into waves, but whilst the sea was cold it didn’t have much effect. We then went with Evelyn’s cooling tactic and brought Ice Creams – much more sensible ;)

Anthea’s parents kindly offered for us to stay the night as they lived close to the airport, and we had a crazy 7.15am flight. So we headed back to the city where lasagne and crumble were waiting. We packed up another 20kg box to send home – how we managed to accumulate so much stuff on our travels is beyond us! Thankfully Anthea posted the box off for us the post office wasn’t open at 8pm ;)

4.30am wake up! Argh, shouldn’t have done so much hiking round the cliffs yesterday! We had what felt like a luxury flight back to Auz, as we were supplied breakfast – something our last few flights lacked.

Big thanks to Andrea, Mike, Dave (& families) for homing, feeding & watering us ;)

A real shame to leave New Zealand as we would have liked to see more of this beautiful country. We will be back again one day…