A sunny 27 degrees today so headed off to Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach.
At Hahei we were going to do the 75 minute walk to Cathedral Cove, over quite steep terrain but, as luck would have it, we spotted a boat tour from Hahei beach which took in the coast as well as Cathedral Cove, so opted for that. When we gave our surname to the man he said that it was quite a common name around here but spelt Harsant and then we stumbled across the following:
John thinks he has come home and has decided he likes New Zealand so much he wants to live here!
Took the boat from the gorgeous beach up the coast to various caves and then back down to Cathedral Cove which was stunning, but unfortunately we didn’t land to get off and have a good look.
After that we went off to Hot Water Beach which is an area of hot water springs which are accessible 2 hours either side of low tide. The idea is that you dig a hole in the sand and have a wallow in hot water so we went prepared with a couple of shovels from the apartment. The spring area was packed with people digging holes. Some of the water was extremely hot, scalding in fact. We managed to find a hole that had been vacated and dug down a little to get more water, most strange that boiling hot water was coming up right next to cold water and had to be careful where we sat!
John in hole with hot bum.
After 1/2 hour sitting in a mud hole Clare got bored as John had all the hot water so we went for a little walk along the beach and then “both” braved (yes, even John!) the 18 degrees sea to wash off the sand.