Hot Beach and Surfing

Hello hello!

When I last updated you, we were in Rotorua and the forecast was still really unpleasant for Tongariro, the area where we want to do our next hike. We decided to head north to the Coromandel Peninsula and see the sights while waiting on the weather.

The drive to Coromandel was really pretty. The hills pretty much all looked like Hobbit hills. There were also some really cool sights to see in Coromandel. We did a short walk to Cathedral Cove, which was a really cool beach that had a huge cave/tunnel. It was very pretty. After Cathedral Cove, we went to Hot Water Beach. That's right, Hot Water Beach. Hot Water Beach is a beach that has a natural hot spring under it. Around low tide you can dig a shallow hole in the beach and have your very own hot tub. The water is around 60 degrees Celcius, so we ended up having to devise a system of canals in order to not burn ourselves, but it was really worth the effort. We had the only hot pool with continuous inflow and outflow. (Trust a plumber's daughter). Hot Water Beach was AWESOME.

The next day we drove from the east coast to Raglan on the west coast. Raglan is world-famous for its surfing so we signed up for a lesson and gave it a try today. Surfing was also AWESOME. We had a good instructor and we both managed to stand up pretty easily. It was really fun and I was really impressed with how quickly we learned. Here is a picture of Jay:

Another cool thing about Raglan is that our hostel room is actually an old rail caboose. The hostel has about 15 cabooses and train cards in the yard. It is pretty cool.

The weather is finally getting better in Tongariro so we are heading back south tomorrow and we will hopefully be starting the Tongariro Northern Circuit on Saturday. We will be happy to be back on the trail.