A beautifully constructed hot water foot spa

With an overnight stop off in Orewa again to breakup the journey we moved onto the Coromandel peninsular for a few days. Our first stop was a beautiful walk down to (and backup from) Cathedral Cove which has been sculpted by the unforgiving waves. The huge stone arch has been roped off (it seems to be finally giving into the elements) so we could not venture far along the beach or see the blow holes but it was still very pretty.

Part of the amazing water carved cove

The waves are this big

Our over night stay was at Hot Water Beach Top 10 park and again it did not disappoint, the facilities were very new and there was a really nice communal lounge/eating area where we got chatting to a few of the other campers. It was rather difficult not to as a gregarious Australian guy with his son in tow made himself the host introducing everyone to each other. We had a fun evening trying to chat to people from all over the world (although mainly France and Germany). Who knew that car insurance was so cheap in Australia?

The morning of the 13th we made an early start to beat the tide (and the crowds) to the highlight of New Zealand so far, the hot water at the beach. After a few minutes poking around trying to work out what to do we located our own area of hot sand and started to dig with everyone else (there were about 20 of us at this time). At a few points half way along Hot Water Beach (only accessible near low tide) hot water warmed by the volcanism in the area bubbles to the surface. We quickly found that the temperature of the water varied over a very small area, within 6 inches it could go from boiling to freezing. Being my geeky self I realised that the nice temperature areas ran in a band down the beach so dug a long trench with a pool at the end rather than a wide pool like everyone else, once I had finished building the walls we had our very own perfectly constructed hot water foot spa where we lounged for the next few hours until the beach got too crowded.

Me digging with a saucepan

Aimee enjoying my creation - note the large retaining wall

Is Aimee smiling because of the hot water or the view?

Relaxed like only a free, all natural, foot spa can make you we stopped at the Hot Water Beach cafe and had a delicious platter of fresh bread, hummus, salmon and other such goodies and read magazines. Now totally chilled out we departed on the short two and a half hour drive to Papamoa beach, but how long would it take us to get there…

Top 10 camping

Our cosy van

Since leaving Auckland we have been spending the night in Top 10 holiday camps in our funky van. So far the sites have ranged from good to great and we have not had any problems with dirty bathrooms or noisy neighbours. The camp sites have been so good that we have been using the communal kitchens to cook most of our meals.

September 10th we spent our last day in the far north exploring the beaches around Doubtless Bay, even with the occasional gust of wind we had a great time peering into the rock pools and looking at the amazing shells. We also treated ourselves to a meal out at a Thai restaurant that served one of the best Thai salads I have ever eaten (the brilliantly name Pattaya.

Can you spot the duelling hermit crabs

Tropical but chilly

I guess I used all of my good luck on the Thai salad as that night we were treated to something of stormy night, the flat metal roof of our van acts as a beautiful natural amplifier for each rain drop giving us a free steel band concert (although we were warm and dry). The wet weather came and went over then next day and we were able to glimpse some of the beauty of the rugged, west coast. The weather held out just long enough for us to visit some of the largest Kauri trees in New Zealand nestled in some very dramatic fern jungle. As we passed through the small towns we both thought that it would make a nice place to spend a few more days but we had an appointment further south.

Some of the Kauri trees are huge and can be thousands of years old

Mossy stuff

Happy Campers

As this blog is titled ‘Matt and Aimee’ I thought I had better show my face and make my first entry. So I have decided to break my blogging world cherry with a post about our camping adventure last weekend!

Our lovely tent!

It was secretly fun putting the tent up in the dark, slightly delirious from a 5 hour journey while other campers looked on bemused at ‘The English’. Our little pods were amazing- keeping us nice and warm and the creepy crawlies away.

Queuing up for the boat to Skomer at Martin’s Haven.

The boat trip to the Island on board the Dale Princess was reminiscent of the scene in Jurassic Park when they see the Island for the first time, only instead of Pteranodons there were puffins.

Speaking of puffins... theres some now!

The intrepid adventurers- clearly loving it!

Everybody loves a fact about a Puffin so I decided to break up the lovely pictures of the charming puffins with some fun facts! See, learning is fun….

Puffins are sometimes referred to as ‘Clowns of the Ocean’ due to their clown-like behaviour and little stubby wings which flap very fast and hard in order for them to get anywhere.

A baby puffin is rather cutely named a puffling!

Puffins rate amongst Becky Mitchell’s top three animals of all time alongside such greats as the giant turtle and the domestic dog.

During courtship, puffins rub their beaks together to make a sweet puffin-kiss.

On board the 'Dale Princess'

We seem to have acquired an old man in our group.

The O'Connors!

But our trip wasn’t all puffins and camping there was also a poignant side to it. On Sunday we visited the beautiful Freshwater West beach, the location of Dobby’s final resting place in Deathly Hallows Part 1 (although in the book Shell Cottage is located on the outskirts of Tinworth, Cornwall- maybe this could be our next trip?).

And so I end this post with the immortal words of a true hero.

‘Such a beautiful place it is, to be with friends’.