Coromandel Peninsula

What a full day! We woke up to more rain today, surprise! But we decided to make the most of it and go check out Coromandel Peninsula.

It was about a 2.5 hour drive there on windy roads up and down mountains. It was a very beautiful drive, and another test of Matt's driving skills. He's really gotten the hang of it now.

Our first stop was Cathedral Cove. Once we parked it was about a 40 minute hike down to the cove. It was beautiful!

We got lucky with the weather while we were there because it hardly sprinkled on us at all. It was actually a very pleasant temperature and we got to see some sun while we were on the beach!

Then we explored some other little coves around that area. Some were sandy nice little beaches and other were rocky and good snorkeling and crab watching. It was quite the hike around there; my fitness tracker said I reached 60 flights of stairs before it died.

After that it got a little rainy so we explored the little town of Hahei and got some snacks. There was a beautiful beach there, too, but it wasn't really beach weather at that point.

Then we moved on to Hot Water Beach, which is exactly what it sounds. We had heard great things about it but were feeling a little silly when we were traipsing along the beach in the cold rain searching for the hot springs. But it was definitely worth it once we got there. We knew we had found it when we stumbled upon a group of people sitting in self-made hot tubs in the sand, steam rising from them. It was incredible! We literally just took a shovel (our airbnb host cleverly suggested we bring a shovel and lent us theirs) and dug a hole in the sand and voila! Instant hot tub. It was crazy how in one spot you could dig and it would be super hot, but a foot over and it would be cold. And some of it was so hot you couldn't even touch it. We dug our 3-person sized hot tub and relaxed while listening to the waves slapping onto the beach 20 feet away. At that point we were grateful that it was actual cool and rainy out. It was the perfect thing to do in that sort of weather!

Then we stopped and got dinner in a little town called Tairua and made our way back to Auckland. It was a busy day and almost 11pm here, so I'm going to bed. Good night, all!