Coromandel Peninsula

Today we really made the most of the beautiful coromandel peninsula!  Whitianga sits on the North East of North Island on a very large bay, studded with rock formations along the coast and within the bay itself. To get a close up view of the rocks and coastline, we arranged a cave cruiser tour, which was essentially a speed boat with rubber pontoon sides that could take us into caves and very close to rock formations.

Our tour guide for the cave tour was phenomenal! He had a hilarious sense of humor(roasting the ladies who showed up ten minutes late) and he was dialed in on the best routes along the coast. He took us through many caves along the coast featured in the photos and videos, and also took us to the world renowned cathedral cove. This cove was featured prominently in the chronicles of narnia, prince caspian movie as one of the opening shots!

We had such a great time at cathedral cove we decided to hike there following the cave cruiser tour. The hike wasn’t too difficult following the much larger hikes we’d been taking, and featured lovely views of the beach and cliff faces as we made our way to the cove.

We spent a good amount of time in the cove, and then stopped at Pour House on our hike back. This local brewery featured fantastic New Zealand brews, and gave us some much needed food before our next stop!

After enjoying pour house, we decided to hike to another renowned beach, hot water beach. This beach is especially interesting as it has geo thermal activity. Within two hours either side of low tide, it is possible to dig into the sand allowing hot water to escape to the surface forming a hot water pool. The water, with a temperature as hot as 64 °C (147 °F), filters up from two underground fissures located close to each other.

It was super cool to see all of the people digging their own personal hot tubs into the sand, and we were shocked at how hot the water was. We both burned our toes in some of the pools dug closest to the geo thermal activity source!もっと詳しく