Whitianga

 Day 1 – Beach Spa!

After being woken up during the night by the clampit’s next door having a row. Then first thing by their screaming smelly kid who looked like he hadn’t seen a bath for some days, we left horror hotel.

We were setting off for the Coromandel region where there was a beach with hot springs beneath it. Basically you dig a hole, let it fill up with hot water and then you sit in it dumbly looking at each other and wondering what to do next. It sounded right up our street J

After another long but really pretty drive, we arrived at hot water beach and headed to a café to grab a late b/f and hire a spade for the dig. There were a couple on the table next to us. He stood out as he had a Guns and Roses T-Shirt. We didn’t get talking but we ended up bumping into this couple for the next few days.  

Swim togs on and spade in hand we then headed to the beach and the point where the hot springs were. You couldn’t really miss it, loads of people either digging or sitting in the pools looking dumbly at each other.

Feeling with our feet, we found what we thought was a hot spot and Glenn started digging. Rather too enthusiastically as it turns out because after digging something the size of a small crater, I felt the water and it was cold. It seems Glenn had taken a de-tour on his digging and was now letting cold water in through the sand.

After feeling around, digging with spade and hands, we finally had a small puddle to lie in which barely covered your bum. Deciding to just concentrate on boring our bums into the sand as low as we could get, we finally achieved a water level to just below the hip. Everyone else had steam emanating from their puddles (even the Guns and Rose’s couple)  where ours was just luke warm. Glenn, who was by now pretty exhausted and more than a little frustrated, decided to get out and explore recently vacated holes to see if we could nab one (like a cuckoo with a nest).

He promptly jumped into a pool and then even more quickly jumped back out again, trying to stifle a scream. It was boiling hot, even bubbling on the top which is why it was vacant! After I stopped laughing I suggested he get back into the luke warm one and we would make the best of it. He did, we sat there for a bit, looked at each other dumbly and then wondered what to do next. 5 mins later we were out and dressed and heading back to the car.

Our next stop was Cathedral Cove via pretty Hahei Beach where we stopped briefly to take a look.

Cathedral Bay itself was down a steep and winding 45minute track where you got glimpses of the cliff face, really pretty. We overtook Guns and Rose’s couple on the track (fancy seeing them here) and finally at the bottom, we were treated to two really stunning bays with rock formations, caves and even a waterfall.

Probably the prettiest beach we have ever seen. We spent some time wandering around down there before we climbed back up the track to the car.

As it was getting on, we then headed to our motel for the night to check in before we set-off to look around the town. It had turned really cold so after wandering up and down a street for a bit we opted for a healthy kebab (cheapest thing) which actually turned out to be pretty healthy with lots of salad, decent meat and falafel.

Fed, we then went in search for a pint. The town itself was lovely but as its winter was pretty quiet. We managed to find an Irish bar (isn’t there always and Irish bar wherever you go?) with a few people in it so had a couple of drinks before heading back for the night.