Taiwawe Stream

Going new places and meeting new faces we travelled southeast bound to Hot Water Beach on a larger and fuller Kiwi Experience bus. We were now travelling on the main circuit of the Kiwi Experience that the buses run around the country. There are a large number of Brits including a sprinkling of Hooray Henrys but they get everywhere. We spent the time to our destination sharing travelling stories and how we all ended up in New Zealand.

After zig-zagging up and down switch back roads on forest covered hillside we came upon on the Coromandel peninsula. Off the bus and walking along a trail to our first destination, Cathedral Cove, we passed an area of land that has been designated as a memorial to the fallen soldiers of the First World War. The plan is to plant 3000 trees to represent the lives lost but currently there are crosses made from reeds lining the trail path on either side. This simple but haunting representation of loss made Alex think of how lucky he and the other men in our group were for being alive now and not 100 years before when he, Jamie and Pierrick would not have been travelling round the world but as young men would instead have found themselves in the mud of France and Belgium.

The trail dropped down through the tree-studded cliffs to the white sands below. There stood Cathedral Cove, a cavernous tunnel of cathedral proportions (duh) carved out of the cliffside by the sea. The shuffles of our feet through the sand echoed inside the damp of the cove as the smell of the sea wandered through on the breeze. As the sun was setting we returned to our lodgings for a communal dinner with our dorm room mates.

Afterwards we went back out into the black of the evening in search Hot Water Beach. More specifically, the hot springs that can be found in certain spots under the sand, which send hot water up to heat the surface. Armed with shovels the group set about digging self-made spas, which we then sat in as the hot water rose from the sand into a shallow pool. The moon appeared to race through the moving cloud above and the tide crashed onto the shore in front of us.

The temperature of the water and sand was certainly hot and too hot to stand on in some places. It was a challenge to find just the right temperature and people were hopping over the sand as they found spots too hot or cold to stand. The evening sea breeze hungrily snapped around the walls of the spas but the hot water kept the real cold at bay like a fire normally would. It was a memorable experience, made more so by the fact that we were doing it in winter darkness.Read more