Hot Water Beach

Tuesday, March 20 – It’s another beautiful, sunny day with mild temperatures – perfect for our day trip to Hot Water Beach. This gorgeous beach on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula has an unusual spot where natural hot water pools are very close to the surface. For two hours before and after low tide, you can dig your own hot tub in the sand. We took our time driving to the beach and stopped at another beach just to enjoy the scenery. Low tide would be at about 2:30 so the best time to be at the hot water beach was 12:30 to 4:30. We arrived a little early but there were quite a few people heading down the beach with their spades so we followed along. It was only a short walk along a beautiful beach before we arrived at the hot beach area. John started digging as did everyone else – no hot water yet and it seemed that most others were not finding hot water either. Well, we were early and there were no instructions as to where exactly to dig. As the tide continued to move out, we tried another spot – still no hot water. We started checking out what others were doing and found that just next to us, a family had dug a wide depression and were all enjoying the hot water. Walking on the sand in front of them we found it was hot – VERY hot. So we dug in there and soon had our little shallow hot tub. The water was so hot that we had to expand the depression to include a cooler area of the sand to blend with the super hot water. Even just standing in the hottest water was impossible - well over the temperature of the hottest of hot springs.

As I was sitting in the shallow hot water, a German lady came by and asked if she and her husband could share our pool. Her husband then came with his spade and he and John dug a little more. Eva and Dietmar, a retired professor of physics, were from Kassel, Germany and were near the end of a four month journey around New Zealand. . When they arrived in NZ, they bought camping equipment, tents, sleeping bags, air mattresses, cooking gear, etc. and have been camping for nearly four months. We told them about home exchanging and they are now very keen to try it themselves. I think they have probably had enough camping for a while but it certainly enabled them travel around the country inexpensively and they were able to see a lot – and escaped Germany’s cold winter months. We had a very pleasant visit with them and John had a chance to practice his German, although both Eva and Dietmar spoke English. We exchanged email addresses and will hope to keep in touch with them.

We drove up the coast a little farther to Cooks’ Beach and then headed back to Tairua where we stopped for a very late lunch.

I’ll post pictures of Hot Water Beach next week after we arrive in Perth.

Voyage to Tairua

Monday in Pauanui

The title of this blog is a little joke – the “voyage” was a ferry ride of 10 minutes across the bay from Pauanui to the little tourist village of Tairua. We started the day rather early because daylight savings time ended in New Zealand this morning so we were wide awake before by 6 a.m. We needed to get tourist info from the tourist information center but it wasn’t open until 10:00. We knew there was a ferry but not the times and took a ride over there and no signs. So, we went back home and I figured out how to use the Espresso machine and made us some cappuccino – it turned out great! So then we did a little spin around Pauanui – that didn’t take long as it is only about 2 miles long by a mile wide – (just a guess). We finally got to visit with the very helpful lady at the info center who gave us lots of brochures and suggestions. We found out that the next ferry was leaving at 11:15 so we were on it heading for Tairua. It was pleasant, not exciting, and we walked the little Main St. – checked out the gallery and gift shops and had lunch – BLT pannini sandwiches which were excellent. Bacon, by the way, is quite different from what we are used to, but very good. Walked some more, sat on a bench by the shore and watched the seagulls. Headed home on the 3:00 ferry. The weather is absolutely the best! A little windy but blue skies and warm temperatures. Tomorrow will be more interesting – we’re going to head out in the car to explore the Coramandel Penninsula including the Hot Water Beach.