Drove into Aukland for just one night before heading to Comorandel Coast to a place called Hahei. Stayed in a holiday park right ont eh beach. Walked along hte beach route to Cathedral Cove. At night we went to hot Water Beach and dug a hole in the sand which strangely filled with very hot water and voila, we had our very own spa. To tell the truth we couldn't find our own hot water so we invaded someone elses and diverted their flow of water. The water was amazingly hot, even too hot to lie in. Next day we were off to Raglan, a small town on the west coast famous for a great place to surf. We stayed in an adventure centre which had a great flying fox. Karen and I manages to get a job for a week in Raglan backpackers which is in the town. Moved in there the next day. All we have to do is clean for two hours a day and we get free accom. if we do an extra hour we can get free surf board and wet suit hire. managed to go surfing 4 days altogether, including a lesson. It was great fun and we even managed to stand up on the board (well 5 out of 500 times but still....) The water wasn't too cold but it was a laugh. had to be oretty determined keep going back out and being knocked off wave after wave. Some days we were on our own and the waves were pretty high, pretty scary! At least we looked the part?!