The Queens Birthday and Adventures in The Coromandel

The last weekend of May/June was a long weekend here in honor of the Queens birthday. Even though you wouldn't know it New Zealand is a part of the Commonwealth. Other than paying out to the Crown and being able to compete in the Commonwealth Games i'm not really sure what else it means. In any event we had a long weekend! Matt and i decided to stretch our legs and take the "leggy" on a trip. So we headed south to The Coromandel. The Coromandel is a peninsula about 3 hours south of Auckland famous for it's beaches. We drove down on Saturday and made camp in Whitianga. Actually we didn't really camp, we just stayed at a hostel. In any event we went for a walk on the beach, had a lovely dinner and then had drinks back at our hostel.

The beach across from our hostel in Whitianga


Shell collecting


Pretty Tree


:-)


We got up the next morning and drove just a bit further south to the hot water beach. I'd heard about the hot water beach but really had no idea how it worked. Basically when the tide is out you can go to this lovely beach, rent a shovel and you dig yourself a hole. Basically as the tide goes out water gets trapped in the holes and the thermal lava streams (or whatever that run under neath the beach) heat the holes. Even though it's winter here Matt and i bared down to our skivvies (ha i just said skivves) and started digging.

The Hot Water Beach


However digging isn't quite my thing (i tried!) according to Matt and so we jumped in to someone else's hole and then we fortified their walls.

Me digging (not really)


Matt (really digging!)


All the holes


Me and Matt


Me


In any event it was super cool (hot really!). Certain areas were really hot and the tour guide we'd met the night before in the hostel told us that some people had actually boiled an egg in their pool the day before!

After an hour or so at the beach we packed in the car and headed to Cathedral Cove. The hike to the cove took about an hour or so before we finally arrived at the cove (Which is only accessible by hike or boat).

You can see why it might be called Cathedral Cove




Awesome Rock, Man i feel short!



After our hike we headed back to Auckland and enjoyed the last of our long weekend. A lovely weekend all together.