No chance of a hot dip for us!

What a disappointment, the first of our mega adventure. And why? We were at a place called Hot Water Beach not to far from Whitianga on the East coast. We had left Coromandel fairly early as it was imperative that we arrive at Hot Water Beach at least 2 hours either side of low tide. Is that another why I hear you ask? Well, the name of the beach may give it away. Two hot springs of around 60° rise through the sand from just below the cliff and flow out towards the sea. Armed with spades one can dig themselves a nice round hole letting the hot water flow up and pretend they are in a spa.   What a fabulous way to pass an hour or so but...we only just got a space in the car park, the queue for the ticket machine stretched forever and then when we got to it the fee was $2 per hour! We quickly decided not to bother but head for another carpark seen as we drove up. Then as we headed up the coast to turn round we saw this,

Groan....how we would have loved to dig ourselves a nice bath full of hot water and just lie and relax. Neither of us does crowds very well and almost decided it was not for us, but spaces could be seen in that other car park further along the beach (in the distance you can see a small pocket of people. The  car park was off to the left) so we parked up and walked toward the crowds.

 Now you can see why we were disappointed. The only bit of diggable sand left was right in the middle and that was extremely hot! I know.....I tried to stand on it.... silly me....bad move!

At least we managed to stand in a vacated puddle and feel how wonderfully warm the water was.

Back to the van and off to Tauranga. A good drive of around 140km. We managed to find a fabulous site right on the edge of The Bay of Plenty. Tomorrow we want to do Matamata and the famous Hobbit set. About 70km from Tauranga should take us about 45 minutes.

Mt Maunganui

Tauranga Tourist park