Hot Water Beach

After our hike to Cathedral Cove, we drove a few miles to Hot Water Beach. It's popular for the hot water you can find 2 hours before and up to 2 hours after the low tide. People come from far and wide toting shovels to dig their own little hot spring. Today's low tide was at 530pm. When we showed up at 330, there was already a crowd of people digging holes trying to find hot water. You start digging and if it's cold water, you find another place and start digging again. In some areas it was too cold, and some too hot. My feet were nearly scalded in one area. It's quite interesting to watch and to do. We finally dug our hole and with a little help from our neighbors, we got the Sanger hot pool just right.

The hot water is caused by small fissures in the earth that develop due to large underground reservoirs of heated water, the legacy of the areas geothermic past.

It's a little strange and a lot of fun at the same time.

We picked up a few more provisions at the one store in Hahei, and had dinner a la Campa (Kiwi-speak for Camper) again.

This town is so small and so quaint that the one store in town is also it's post center. All the resident's last names are written in chalk on a blackboard over the register. If you have mail in, your name is starred;)