From Waitomo we headed to the Coromandel Peninsula and firstly visited Hot Water Beach which is one of the top ten beaches to visit in the world. As the name suggests this beach has hot water. At low tide you go down to the beach and dig yourself a hole which then naturally fills with hot water. The water is heated to 64oc by hot rock below which was heated when the area was last volcanically active which was 5-9 million years ago and it still has a temperature of 170oc today.
We headed down to the beach around midday and took our little shovel along with many others and dug ourselves a little hole. Initially the water that was coming through was cold but there was a scolding hot stream of water next to us which we allowed to come into our hole. We gradually made our hole bigger and it was like taking a hot bath but in the middle of a beach! It was the strangest free activity we have done so far! When the tide came in it made the sea lovely and warm but was still able to burn my feet but soon enough it was like nothing had happened and all the holes went away.