Hot springs and beautiful caves

(Whitianga, New Zealand, 13th of January 2017)

One of the things we planned during our rest day yesterday was today’s trip to “Hot water beach” and “Cathedral Cave” with a small bus. In the morning we took a small ferry across from Whitianga to the mainland, where we found our little shuttle bus.

The driver of our bus must be a big fan of “near death experiences” as the bus journey was anything but quiet and peaceful. In New Zeeland, you often get to drive 100 km / h, no matter how narrow or bumpy the road is and this was something our driver really had embraced.

We, however, came unscathed to the “Cathedral Cave” bus stop and once there we started to walk the half-hour long walk down to the cave on a winding road overlooking the sea. When we got down to the “Cathedral Cove” the small beach strip was filled with people, impressive rock formations and beautiful views.

After a while, however, the number of visitors were a bit to many and we decided to make our way back to the bus stop.
The bus we took to Cathedral cove drives past various tourist attractions a number of times each day and returns to the various stops on a regular basis and you can make as many stops as you like. However, we had just planned one more stop – “Hot Water beach”. This beach has hot springs where you can swim for a few hours each day – only when it is low tide. It is important to check these hours out before traveling there, otherwise the visit will be quite boring, as you will only see a long, plain beach. We arrived a bit early and started with having a picnic in the dew with home-made sandwiches and coffee. When we got down to the beach, the water had sunk so much that the hot water had begun to arrive. It really looks a bit crazy when warm water bubbles up from the groundwork The sand becomes really hot and you can not walk close to the well. Then the hard work began – to find the perfect place to dig our own hot water tub, and it was not easy. We had hired a spade in a cafe up the road and it made the work a little easier. The big problem was finding a place where the water wasn´t too hot and it took us three tries before we found the perfect spot.

What a strange feeling to be laying in a hole filled with mud and some warm water on a beach along with hundreds of other people. It was a really cool experience and we stayed in our little pit at least an hour until we were all wrinkled.

When we went back from the Hot Water Beach we got a new driver, an older talkative man who drove a little less crazy than our previous driver. However, the calm did not last longer than 10 minutes when the nice driver was replaced, and the madman whas back. However, we survived the bus ride even though we arrived at the ferry position with our hearts up in our neck pits.
For dinner, home-made potato soup was served, a luxurious experience in a world where the food usually consists of fried fish and pies.

// Christel