Hot Water Beach and an Unfortunate series of events

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We woke to a clear blue sky today and the sound of Tui birds calling. Our plan today is to head to the hot water beach, but there are optimal times to be there (low tide) so the idea was to get there for about 12:30. We borrowed a shovel from the campground and got packed to go. Unfortunately, just a we were about to leave Joshua returned to the cottage in tears having sprained his knee jumping from the sand dunes with his Swiss friends. After about half an hour of icing his leg, we decided to head to the hot water beach as planned, hoping the long bath in the hot water might help out the knee.

When we arrived at the beach, I carried Joshua on my back the few hundred meters down to where a group of people seemed to be congregating. It seemed as it there is some sort of a stream that you need to dig your hole near. We tried a few locations, but only got cool water filling in our trench. I tried moving in towards the centre of the group of pools where there seemed to be room to dig a new pool, and found the water was hot enough to burn my feet. Eventually we found a spot between the surf and stream and started to dig.

At some point Benjamin took over and in his haste, managed to put the shovel into his big toe resulting in a large bleeding gash. For the first time since we started traveling, we cracked out our small first aid kit and proceeded to patch him up. As all this was going on, some of the early arrivals at the beach were beginning to leave meaning there were some pre-dug and comfortably warm pools to be had. Like basking seals, we moved and found one prime spot and then moved to better ones as they became empty.

The pools are really not quite like a hot tub - you can't dig down that deep before they begin to collapse in. Instead, you need to dig a large shallow pool and spread out in it. It reminded me of lying on the hot granite reefs in the Georgian Bay. Inevitably, your pool would have a very hot part where the hot stream was flowing in, and a cooler section where the ocean water was entering. The trick was to mix there two sources to create a comfortable temperature. In the end the effect is somewhere between lying on in a hot tub and lying on hot rocks.

Benjamin had given up on trying out the pools shortly after gashing his toe. I think it was just two awkward for him to keep his bandaged foot up and still be comfortable. Joshua, on the other hand, seemed quite restored by the therapeutic effects and was able to walk back to the car.

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Photos

Everyone's looking for warmth
Not a foggy day or a blurry picture--just lots of steam!