We were up early and ready for the beach this morning, we drove the ten minutes down the road. We parked, got our things together then walked to rent a spade to dig our own hot water pool. We walked down onto the beach not knowing what to expect. There was a patch where there seemed to be a lot of activity and a lot more steam. We headed for there, as we walked up there we saw groups of people sat in their pools they had dug out of the sand with water in the bottom, it was so bizarre looking. We dumped our things on a rock and took our spade to find a spot. It was actually quite difficult to find a good spot, in some places the sand burned! It was way too hot in places, although some people dug their holes in these spots then using a bucket they had brought they added cold sea water to get it to the perfect temperature. We took a while but ended up finding a spot which had one half hot and the other not. We dug it out and got sat in, digging all the time down to the hot water. The tide had started to come in and had taken a few of the pits out. A large spot near us with lots of kids was wiped out. Our spot was warm still and seemed to be standing up to the sea. James got up to take a photo and I got invaded by (very polite) children wanting the warm. The dads came along to help dig the hole bigger, we’d already been there a good hour so decided to leave them to it. We went back to the van to de-sand and get changed. We had loved the Hot Water Beach . We had something to eat and took the spade back and started our drive to Auckland. We are hoping in our few days left we may have time to get a couple of days north of Auckland in. We drove a route described as ‘the ledgendary 309’ in our Lonely Planet guide. The road was ok, not great in a camper but we did get to stop at some Kauri trees which are enormous trees they have here, it was worth the drive. Unfortunately our route had taken us on more inland roads than coastal roads but when we did get to drive by the coast they were great. Eventually we managed to get to Manukau where we stopped at a holiday park. A little organising done and a good sleep.