Wednesday, February 10, 2010

From Auckland to the Coromandel

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
http://www.whitianga.co.nz/hahei.html
http://www.cathedralcovemacadamias.co.nz/
http://www.hahei.co.nz/
http://www.seakayaktours.co.nz/
http://www.whitianga.co.nz/gallery.html
http://www.matarangi.co.nz/

Hot water beach in nzThe Hot water Beach in Haihei - was fun to be there and get burned - but as you can see the crowds where astounding. So much so - it almost spoiled the fun! Anyhow there must have been well over 100 in a very enclosed space - almost a stau!!






ohhhhhhh that's hot waterYes folks -it WAS hot water that is bubbling up from underneath - in fact it comes out at 60 degrees - and here mamabear can be seen slowly cooking away!! The expression is priceless . . .







Hot water beachSee what you do is wiggle your toes in the sand and sink in for a bit and if you go - yikes this is hot - you found a spot - go and dig a big spot and create a wall and sit and soak - just like these folks did! Thing is - you can do this only two hours either side of low tide - once tide comes back in - it washes it all away and the water is too deep to be an effective hot pool.





NZ FernsSome of the lovely greenery on the island, seems it is a wet-ish sort of place for these ferns to grow rather prolific.








public toilets at cathedral coveOn top of the car park near Cathedral cove - is the public toilets - and as you can see they are expecting mass tourism to arrive any time soon - either that or some poor bugger has a serious case of the trots!! Now which roll shall I use - the soft one or . . . . . wait - urm eeny meeny miny yeah THAT one!!





Walking down towards Cathedral CoveThe 40 min walk down towards Cathedral cove, in teeming sunshine. The local scenery made up more for the walk!! BTW - that meant 40 min back up too!! The only other way to get there is to swim some 900 m along the coast line urm - ok or paddle on some form of raft. I counted in the car park 130 cars (and some 50 of them got tickets 'cause they parked on yellow lines) and I figured each car has 2 people on avg - that's 260 plus folks on the beach, well not all because there was this steady stream of people on the track either coming or going!!







Cathedral coveAt the bottom and resting up after the walk - or was it just soaking in the heat - no wait more like soaking up the scenery!








Cathedral cove BeachYep, the water was warm too!!













Cathedral coveHere is the Cove - all ready and willing. I had to wait for 12 minutes and even then had to wave arms and legs before everyone got the idea that I didn't want folks to wonder into the photo shoot. Patience does pay sometimes.

Just as we were ready to leave I spotted three baby stingray's in the surf!! Having seen some at Kelly Tarltons - so that was soooo cool to see them here too.



Local DOC officer who was on a mission to ask some pertinent questions. We helped him with the survey and hoped that we gave useful answers. Lucky guy - he's normally desk bound so he really enjoyed his day in the sun!!











Cathedral Cove beachCathedral Cove from the top of the car park. Well you can't actually see the cave - it's hidden behind the cliff face on the other side, but it gives you an idea how far it is!







Same shot - slightly diff location to shoot from! Better pic I recon!!










bear print

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