Around the Coromandel

  Hot Water Beach, Auckland, New Zealand Sunday, January 18, 2015

After Bryan had finished his swimming session with Adam and the Sea Walkers, we set off on a beautiful drive to Hot water beach. We had our little Toyota car and drove south from Auckland and then East and north again. It was only a small car but it was doing a great job of running us around managing the hills quite well especially with our heavy bags in the boot too. The scenery was beautiful all the way. Wherever we looked there were rolling green hills. We were gasping for a cuppa but as it was gone 5pm now, everywhere was shut! We passed cafe after cafe but it was the same everywhere. Everywhere shut. So you can imagine our joy when we eventually trundled into a small town named Tirua and saw several cafes and bars still open at 7pm. We parked up and went in the nearest one The Pepe.  There were lots of tables occupied and people eating but most had food already. We calculated 2 tables of about 10 people maximum still waiting so we didn't anticipate a very long wait. Our wait was actually a lot shorter than we thought it would be though as you can imagine our surprise when the barman said "sorry, we are too busy and we don't served coffee when we are busy!" Stupid typical New Zealander attitude. We hit this many times on our first trip and this is what marred it for us last time. Having said that, this is the first time we have come across it on this trip so maybe they are learning! Onwards and upwards then! Around the corner to a fabulous place with live music and a much friendlier attitude. Refreshed we made our way the last few Km to Hot Water Beach. It was quite funny to see holiday makers heading off to the beach in their swim suits with their towels and their spades - in the pitch dark! We pulled into our campsite and found the keys to our cabin and drove over there. We were very happy when we saw it - it was like a little hobbit hole - just for us! It also smelled very new - that lovely smell of new wood. And it was very clean and very cozy. We slept well and checked in with reception for today's tide times. This is important. The hot water only rises through the sand for the 2 hours either side of low tide. With a 12' noon low tide we had time for breakfast before donning our own kit and trundling across as we had seen the other last night. We arrived at the beach and it was packed. We say packed - it was actually quite empty - except this one area of the beach where the hot water comes up. We dug a hole on the edge of it and sat in it. Brrr! it was freezing! Ok rethink the strategy - move closer to where the smug people are sitting in their puddles. A bit better. We could actually feel the warmth through the sand but no hot water. Looking across at some of the others we could see steam rising from their puddles. So squeezing ourselves in by the tide line as it went out, we dug again. Bingo! We had found the hot water but now it was too hot to sit in! We waited for a big wave to come in and cool it down and it was great. Nowhere else on earth (as far as we know) can you do this. (Let us know if you know better). Mission accomplished! We spent the rest of the day in the lovely friendly restaurant in Tirua before going back to our hobbit hole for the evening. We had a beautiful bottle of red we had bought at McGuigan's in the Australian Hunter Valley we had been saving and tonight was the night to drink it. It is SO dark here at night. There is no light pollution and we fancied sitting on our deck to drink it. We had drunk most of the bottle and we were watching the satellites and wishing for shooting stars (we did see a few) when Bryan shouts - oh look at this one! We were both mesmerised as a bright streak flew past us right to left. It was going much more slowly than a shooting star and was burning red. We then realised it wasn't very high above us and not very far in front of us and what we were actually seeing was a meteorite crashing to earth. WOW! Powerful wine or it was real. Neither of us had ever seen anything like that before. We estimated it would have fallen in the next field across from where we were sitting. It was a bit too dark and foresty otherwise we would have been tempted to try and find it. Obviously we didn't have any photos to prove it but we will both remember it as long as we live. It was definitely a highlight of our trip here. We left the following day still on a high from the sighting, and headed in a lazy direction of Auckland. We had a reservation there tonight but we were in no hurry to get there. It is so beautiful here why do we need to get to the city in a rush? We took a long way around the peninsular and as we were nearing the town of Tapu Bryan spotted a sign saying "Welcome - Pottery". We turned in, and up a tiny track, and a bit further, and a bit further and eventually came upon a clearing. There were all sorts of statues lining the track and surrounding the clearing and finally we saw an arrow pointing to the way in. Not knowing what at all to expect, were came upon a little hut and then a woman appeared and was telling us all about her pottery. We followed her directions to a track that wound further up the hillside, all the way lined with (some) crazy statues and others just lovely and interesting. It turns out this lady has lived here for 40 years and for the last 15 opened her garden to visitors to see the culmination of her works. She was very interesting and her garden was beautiful too. How could it not be though if it was inspired the the absolutely beautiful surroundings and views. We spent a little time chatting to her before moving on again. We shall remember this part of New Zealand fondly. As well as having just the most beautiful scenery, the Coromandel has some really beautiful beaches and some of the nicest people we have met anywhere in New Zealand (and one of the grumpiest!) This part probably gets overlooked a lot in favour of the more well known touristy areas but we can recommend it highly - although we can't guarantee you will see a meteorite! [gallery columns="4" ids="10186,10194,10198,10202,10206,10214,10219,10222,10233,10241,10245,10256,10264,10271,10274,10280,10287,10293,10302,10312,10327,10341,10351,10358,10366,10377,10395,10402,10410,10418,10428,10441,10451,10460,10472,10482,10498,10510,10524,10539,10548,10553,10561,10566,10576,10580,10589,10598,10607,10612,10622,10627,10635,10642,10651,10658,10670"]