Auckland to Thames and Whitianga

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Auckland to Thames and Whitianga

Hello there everyone - i am back again!!!! Will not bother apologizing for the 3 month back log for blog updates. Anyway i have run out of excuses and they are getting a bit weak.

To enable me to complete my New Zealand blogs i have to inform you i have borrowed pictures from various sources. Okay they are not my exact visions and memories but it's the best i can offer and to be honest the photo's do really put me back to my times over there...so all is good!

So here we go. Wow its been a log tiime since New Zealand North Island! But it really good and makes me smile thinking back to the moments and experiences i had over there.

I remember waking on the morning i was setting off on day 1 of the magic tour bus and feeling very groggy - like when you feel you are coming down with flu or something like that. I was on the bus most of the morning, very larthargic and dosing on and off most of the time and not been my usual chatty self. Our tour

guide was a really lively nice girl called Katy (originally from Scotland).

Our first call off was Mnt Eden in Auckland. It is a great viewing point to see the auckland the 'The city of sails' Also the Mnt has several small volcanic craters and was formed by volcanic activity. Apart from the view it was pretty uninspiring and it was cold up there so i was keen to move on.

From there we headed off towards thames and the Coromandel Peninsula. To get here we drove through lots of hill, small mountain ranges, forestry and saw some lovely scenery. Thames was a typical Newzealand Small town and gave me a taste of what was about to be a regular thing and accorance during my travels in NewZealand. Thames, like many other New Zealand towns was basically very quiet, very little atmosphere, very little to do and just had lots and lots of coffee & bakery shops. Anyway weatehr was good so i took a walk. I remember choosing to go and eat at mcdonalds - hopefully this comfort food will make me feel better - i was wrong!

From there we headed to Cathedral cove - to get to the cover there was a small walk (about 1-2 km). There were a few other coves - 1 was called stingray cove. Both Coves were lovely, the sea was really clear, the sand white and the rock formations and surrounding were lovely. You / I didn't expect to see such beaches like this here in NewZealand. Went for a swim - not the nice warm tropical waters i had been used to in Fiji - Water was freezing. Suprisingly there was only me daft enough to go in the water!

From there we had a short drive to Hot water beach. The beach wasnt anything special to look at, the special thing about this place is the under water thermals cause by volcanic heat way down under the surface. To experience these thermals you have to wait till low tide which was about 7pm. We had to hang around for a couple of hours and the sun and temperature was starting to drop - thats when i definetely realised i wasn't well and was constantly shaking (flu lilke).

As the water / tide went out you could see the steam coming from the shallow water. The idea now is to make you own spa bath by digging ahole in the sand. This proved tricky because as you dug the whole a wave would come in and fill you hole back with sand. Also you needed to make sure enough cold water was getting in otherwise the water would get too hot and burn you. Also it was tricky becasue as you were digging the hot water was scolding you feet. Eventually we came up wit a solution. With the sand we were digging out we used this to make a sand wall around our sand - this stopped a lot of the cold water from getting in our spa and also stopped sand re-filling the hole we were digging. Once finished we all jumped in and had our own natural home made spa bath - it was soooooooooooooooo good!!!!!!

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Photos

hot water beach3
Steam coming from the sea