The Walters get into hot water

The family had been reduced from five to four as we dropped Kathy off at the airport last night for her flight home. Vicky immediately moved into her bed at the hotel so she could get free breakfast. She left for her lecture and we lazed about a bit then picked her up at 11am a and set off for the Coromondel peninsula, a picturesque area two hours drive from Auckland. Our destination was hot water beach. You arrive at the cafe, hire a spade, then dig a big hole in the sand. Because there is a hot spring emptying onto the beach the water seeps into the big hole and voila, you have a hot tub. Only problem is you can only do it two hours either side of low tide. We arrived at the cafe with around half an hour to go before we would get washed away. The very nice cafe lady told us not to bother hiring a spade as there would be loads of empty holes this close to the tsunami. We spotted the area on the beach and rushed over to find ourselves a nice prepared hole and jumped in. Ow! It was boiling, hotter than a hot bath. We gingerly sat, then laid down. very now and then an extra hot bit of water gushed through our pit burning us even more. I loved it, hot tub on the beach, amazing! And this close to destruction there were few people left at a place that can get extraordinarily busy, for NZ, in the summer. And we didn't have to do any digging either!

Ian getting par boiled

Strangers getting par boiled.

All too soon the sea arrived to wash our hole away so we scootled on back to the cafe and ordered a light lunch. Nothing looked very appetising so I asked Ian to share the meat platter (£13 for two) with me. It was a delicious mish mash of all sorts, meat,cheese,salmon, salady things and bread. 

Chris and Vicky had burritos, both huge. It was 3pm by now so we decided we never needed to eat again. 

Next on the Coromondel hit list was cathedral cove. We drove to the car park and set off down the track, first we came upon stingray bay, a lovely rounded beach with no one on it. We explored a bit then carried on. This was when the rain started. Luckily Vicky had a brolly and we could dodge the drops though the trees. It stopped pretty soon leaving a fantastic rainbow. Cathedral cove is a bay with an arched rock in it which we took some lovely photos at ( to follow as they are on my camera not phone like those above) then set off back calling at gemstone cove, another lovely beach. Three for the price of one. The views all around were amazing too. 

We decide to drive back through a canyon but the light failed us and there was nothing to see except the stars. We stopped and gazed up in wonder as the sky was clear and there was no light pollution. It's funny how everything is upside down down here. Much to Vickys delight we drove through the town of paeroa where the amazing drink, lemon and paeroa is made. She had her photo took beside a giant bottle and we decided to get fish and chips from a tacky looking Chinese takeaway. It cost $4.50 for fish and chips, that £2.25. We had to share the paper though.

Now we were full and tired so we made for home.