Hot Water Beach at Mercury Bay

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Today, after picking up some picnic supplies at Tairua, we set off to Hot Water Beach near Mercury Bay (Whitianga). This is at the NE coast of the North Island. The weather here reminds us very much of the British Autumn, all the trees are different colours and although it is cold, it's quite fresh so it's nice to walk around in (as long as its not raining).

We made our way down to the beach, which was deserted. It was really beautiful with a mist coming up from the sea. We walked along and found a spot with steam coming up from the sand, so we began to dig and soon we found ourselves in a pool of thermal water!! Yey!! Parts of it were so hot we couldn't even stand in them. It was so lovely when the air around us was so cold! Although we did have our bikinis on underneath (wishful thinking from all of us I think!) the air was a bit too chilly to strip off for, so we were content with just giving our feet a hot bath.

After a lovely picnic back at the van we decided to take off to our next destination. We were originally going to visit Catherdral Cove, which is supposed to be a beautiful archway, shaped from volcanic formations, however, the weather was starting to get really bad again, so we decided to get going.

The drive down to Rotorua was really lovely. We made our way back down the windy roads of the Coromandel Peninsula and the scenery was really pretty - lots of hills and trees - all different colours and different shades of green. Sheep everywhere too!

On the way down we also passed through Matamata, another Lord of the Rings site. (Fee squealed a little at this point). We arrived in Rotorua or 'Sulphur City' just as it was getting dark - and it was amazing to see geysers and steam jetting up all around us. We found ourselves a little safe place to park and ventured out into the (smelly) town to get some hot chocolate (bean gagging all the way).

It wa a really super day!!

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