On Sunday 5 June 2016, a group of 6 (3 from South Korea, 1 from Japan, 1 from Colombia and myself) left Auckland city at 9.30am and went to Coromandel. It was a clear sunny day and the temperature was about 16 degrees in the shade but felt 20 degrees in the sun.
Coromandel – $80 per person, full day tour.
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Destination: Coromandel
At 11.45am, we arrived at Hot Water Beach and set about digging a hole in the sand to create our hot water pool.
We had to abandon our first site because the water from under the sand there was just too hot – it was boiling and we couldn’t stand on it to dig our pool.
Our second attempt was much better. In no time, we had a good pool with water at a perfect temperature to soak in. We dug a short trench from the area with hotter water to our pool which enabled the hotter water to keep trickling into our pool and keeping it at the right temperature. Even though it was early winter a couple of us braved the colder water of the sea and had a swim in the surf before returning to our hot pool to warm up again.
It was difficult for me to convince the group to leave Hot Water Beach but more than 2 hours there, we really needed to move on. Besides, the tide was coming in and our pool would soon be flooded with cold sea water.
A short 15 minute drive saw us arrive at Cathedral Cove carpark, and we had a picnic lunch on a grass area with a great view over the sea and islands to the north.
We then set off on our 40 minute walk to Cathedral Cove. We spent an enjoyable time there, marvelling in the rock formations and then headed back to the car.
Like the day before, the sun was starting to go down, so we drove directly to Paku Hill, which is a drive of 30 minutes. We arrived there just as the sun was setting, and after some photos from the summit we made our way back to the car in near darkness.
We got to the car at 6pm and were at Manaia Kitchen & Bar in Tairua 5 minutes later. This was my second visit to this restaurant, and the meals were as delicious as the previous time. This will definitely be my restaurant of choice in this part of the Coromandel peninsula.
We left Manaia at 7.40pm and had a short stop for stargazing on the return journey to Auckland. It was a spectacular night to see the Milky Way, Mars, and all the stars because there were no clouds and it was a moonless night, so the stars seemed exceptionally bright. We returned to Auckland at 9.45pm.
