Hot Water Beach

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At $4, the spade seemed a little expensive, but necessary, as we swooshed through the sand towards a huddle of tourists in the middle of the beach.

The instructions from the spade-man were to feel with your feet for warm sand, then start digging - so we did. However, we'd left it rather late, and the tide was pressing, and although some people were luxuriating in expertely crafted sand-baths, we couldn't find warm sand for love nor money; the boat had sailed, without us on board, and the only thing to do was invade, pirate-style, (or maybe 'colonise' is a more fitting word).
Gingerly, one foot at a time, we edged into the remarkably warm, and crowded pools. Unbelievably hot, near-boiling water flooded through the sand, burning our feet! Fantastic! Turns out it's not just heated sea water, but a natural underground salt spring!

The thrill of hot water on a cold beach, didn't last long though, and we headed on to Rotorua...

We arrived around 3ish to be engulfed by the horrendous eggy Sulphur smell that seems to linger around the city. Famed for its geothermal activity, Rotorua was also reported to be a mecca for tourists, earning it the nickname 'RotoVegas', but luckily, we seemed to have timed it right, and the city was all quiet on the tourist front, although, being Friday night, we were hoping for some craic later on.

Night time came, and after donning our glad-rags, we strode off to sample the joys of RotoVegas, and started off....in an Irish pub....I know, it's a cliche, but it seemed to be the most lively place, and we even met up with an Austrian couple who had been on our 'Swimming With Dolphins' trip in the Bay Of Islands. We had an oddly prolonged conversation with the girl, (Anita), who came over, ignoring her male friend for half an hour, which struck us as a bit odd, and we made a move after a quick intro to the guy - Ronald.

After more beers and a pretty good live band in The Pig and Whistle, we tried the Lava Bar, which turned out to be a really cool backpackers bar playing some wicked mainstream dance. Boogying away on the dance floor, who should we spot but Anita and Ronald and it wasn't long before we were all chatting away. Ronald let on that they were cousins, which explained Anita's odd behaviour, and made my gaydar readings for Ronald move up a notch, into the 'potential queen' band, since he'd previously made one or two curious remarks during our dolphin swimming tour.

After sinking several more beers and V&T's, I cut to the chase and asked him if he was a 'sister'. Turns out my gaydar is calibrated to near-perfection, as he told me he was bi and smiled coyly as he told me that he hadn't had much experience. We had a good chat about it all and I fended off his come-ons politely, while Anita started hatching her plans for Adam.

Meanwhile, some horrendously drunk young girls had been dancing in front of me and Adam for some time, taking up valuable dance floor and generally trying to get our attention in any possible way. After several more beers, you could see the devil was in our eyes, and when one of the girls lost her flip-flop, we could help breaking into a game of piggy-in-the-middle, kicking it to eat other as she drunkenly tried to reach for it. We were pissing our sides with laughter, but you could tell she was getting rather annoyed, so I finished the game, whacking the flip flop, across the dance floor and through the crowds much to the annoyance of the silly bint, who staggered up to us and slurred 'I hope yousss sleeeeep well tonight!' with a glare. HA HA CLASSIC

Within half an hour, Anita and Adam were playing tonsil tennis, so I bade my farewells and headed off to bed.

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