Digging our own hot tub

We both slept like logs last night, I think because we were drained from all the driving. Having tea on the road meant we could get to bed early and be up at the reasonable time today to start our exploration of yet another peninsula, the Coromandel. We left many other campers behind us as we hit the road to begin our day. We decided to drive across the bottom first then up the east coast of the peninsula. We haven't decided if we will do the west coast yet so this route gives us the option to double back or continue round to the other side if we want to. Our first stop of the day was in Karangahake where we did the Windows Walk around the gorge and through old gold and quarts mines. They had several walks available but we chose this one because it gave you access into the mine tunnels. Most of the walk is on the old railway system used and it was a pretty cool place to just get lost exploring all the different pathways and avenues. The tunnels are dug into the side of a huge hill and when you head down into the gorge and see them from the other side you get a sense of how much rock and weight is above them. You could definitely spend a good day here exploring the many different routes over all the swing bridges. When we arrived we were among two other cars parked up but when we finished the track the whole carpark was full with around 40 cars. It shows that getting up a little earlier sometimes really does pay off. We popped across the road to get ourselves a coffee which is where we met Nova the cat. I kind of stole her as we waited much to the amusement of other customers. Don't tell Miley and Echo our cats at home that I did rather enjoy having a cat cuddle after so long. Lucy the cat on farm has moved herself to another house after two of her kittens have just taken over and none of them are that cuddly anyway. Luckily I have Tika the dog who is rather into cuddles even if I'm not so into dogs. She's definitely helped me become more confident around dogs. We stopped for a stroll down Whiritoa beach which was very enjoyable. At the end of the stretch people have scratched their names into the rock and some are a good 10cm deep which must of taken them absolutely ages to do and you you really wonder why they even did it in the first place. We had planned to visit Hot Water Beach and Catherdral Cove, both of which we discovered are best to do at low tide and for us unfortunately low tide today was set for 9pm. Luckily their is a Top10 holiday park at Hot Water Beach so we chose to stay here tonight and with our membership cards we had access to free shovels. The beach has a stretch of sand with a natural hot spring underneath where the water reaches the surface at 64 degrees. After some fish and chips from the holiday park we walked down a little earlier than planned and by the light of the moon dug ourselves a hot tub, well more like a paddling pool. The water was so hot in places you couldn't even walk on the sand. We had to dig outwards to get the right balance of hot and cold water and when we finally got it right it was so amazing to just sit back in the warmth and watch the stars. When we left it was coming up to the low tide time so many people had arrived and straight away people asked to use our pool. It's a shame it doesn't actually need to be on low tide that you should dig as is stated but we didn't mind because it meant we were one of only 3 couples there when we did it.Read more