Kawhia

We left Raglan with no plans, except to just leave Raglan. We basically started driving down a crazy windy, gravel road until we ended up at Kawhia, a small fishing town. We had just been talking about how it might be sweet to go to the Cormandel and find a hot water beach. If you are unfamiliar, a hotwater beach is one where hot spring water percolates through the beach towards the ocean. You can utilize this phenomena by digging a make-shift hot tub in the sand during low tide, thus creating an ocean-side hot tub where drinking beer is encouraged. Well as it turns out Kawhia has one, and its kind of a secret.

We learned from a lovely gas station attendant that there was a hot water beach just on the other side of the town, and all you need is a shovel. We ended up getting really lucky as the tide was out for sunset, and we only had to share it with 10-15 other people (apparently the famous one in the cormandel can get hundreds of patrons). Pretty cool to go and dig your own hot tub!

Tourist trapometer: 2/10
Awesometer: 10/10Read more