We were staying close to the popular tourist spots on the Coramandal Peninsular, so we made an early start to beat the rush. Cathedral Cove is a beach with a large limestone arch crossing the beach, there are lots of stacks and islands in the bay which make it a much photographed beautiful beach. Even though we were quite early, stopping only for Graham to go snorkelling, the walk to the beach was quite busy and sea taxis and canoes also make their way there, but it was stunning and we even had a swim.
The next hot spot was Hot Water Beach which you have to visit at low tide. It is a location where you take a spade to a lovely sandy beach and dig a hole which fills with hot water and you sit in it. I know we did a similar thing in Rotorua but this beach was much nicer and the sun was hot and the water was seriously hot, in fact you had to be careful not to burn yourself.
We went on to Cook's Bay which is another beautiful bay discovered by James Cook ( he was a seriously busy man) he managed to map all of New Zealand and managed to work out his longtitude with the transit of Mercury across the Sun ( he was such a brain box ) because of that the area is called Mercury Bay. The place is full of seriously nice houses but it was completely deserted because they are all holiday homes for the wealthy. This is the only place where there had been any signs about evacuation in case of a tsunami, there were maps and evacuation routes to higher ground. We assume that there must be some important people and politicians with houses there that should be saved, the rest of the population don't matter!
We found a nice quiet campsite at a place called Whitianga which is pronounced Fitanger. The Maori language pronounces Wh as F. We hadn't planned our stay here but it's a pleasant town with harbour and beach and a ferry trip cross the bay to a nice evening walk . The weather today has been the best all week, so let's hope it continues.