08/03/09

We woke up fairly late, I went to the Hundertwasser's Public Toilets and washed myself from head to toe there, made a flood on the floor and filled a powerade bottle up with the free soap. The girls and I wandered around Kawakawa towns gift/craft shops, saw some really cool paintings where the artist had used words written in the shape of what the word depicted to paint the entire picture. We emptied the grey water then set off south. After about 300 Km we arived in Silverdale where we had a go on the street luges. It took 8 minutes to get all the way to the top of the hill on the travelator. The girls went first so we were standing around waiting for ages, then all of a sudden they bombed down the bottom of the track looking rather excited. It was our go next so off we went, it seemed to take ages to get up to the top, I was at the back and followed Pat and Rich down, the things speed up so quickly and you just skid round every corner. When I got to the bottom it turned out that Pat and Rich had gone down the intermediate slope and I had taken the fast track. We all decided to go again, this time all taking the fast lane, this time a chicken ran out in front of me and nearly caused me to veer off the track. We got back in the camper and drove the rest of the way to Hot Water Beach. This second half of the journey got very bendy and windy, snaking around hills and mountains. We eventually arived at about 9. The girls and I went for a wander down the beach to find the hot springs. We got there at about 11 and saw loads of people there digging holes in the sand and making huge spas to lay in, steam was bellowing out of them. As we walked past them our feet started burning in the sand, it was so hot we had to sprint across it. We went back to the van and had an early night.

09/03/09

Was woken at 5 by Coops alarm so we could get up and see the sun rise. It was really cloudy so we went back to sleep until the sun came up. We eventually got up at about 8 and had some brekkie. Best breakfast ever, Helen made pancakes for us, it was well nice, I had some of that huge bar of chocolate with mine, so good. I went and hired out a shovel from the shop opposite and we all walked down the beach to the area we saw the guys last night. We arrived at pretty much the perfect time, we started digging, but the sea kept washing sand back in to our hole so I ran back and hired out another. The sun came out and I caught Burns on the way back rushing back to get the sun-cream asap. With 2 sovels it was much easier, we dug down about 1ft and at one point the sand was so hot it burnt our feet just standing on it for a second, so we had to increase the area we were digging to allow some cooler water to flow in to it. When we had finished it was brilliant, we all hopped in and layed in the pool. Such a weird feeling sitting in a spa that you've just made yourself in the sand. The water gets between 60 and 64 degrees depending on where you dig. We spent about an hour laying in the water, then Burns got out and started moaning about how cold it was so wanted a race up and down the beach to warm up. I pointed to a guy really fast in the distance and he said okay and sprinted off as fast as he could, I jogged behind him, after about 30 seconds he was nackered and he headed back. I ended up having a good run all the way to the end of the beach and back, then jumped in the hot pool when I got back, so refreshing. We left just after 11 and gave our pool up to an old couple that were struggling to dig their hole, the old bloke was the hairiest man I have ever seen, he had white hair all over his back, if he and Burns had a child I think it would actually be a Badger. There were plenty of old people lurking about, all the blokes seemed to wear the smallest saggiest speedos ever, rancid. We showered off in the freezing cold water from the showers on the beach then headed off to Cathederal Cove.

We got there and had to park in a bus only parking space because we wouldn't fit anywhere else. The sun was shining again so we went for a walk from the car park down to Cathederal Cove, it took abotu half an hour up and down hills. We got there and everyone laid on the beach for about an hour while I went off and climbed some random rocks around the cove. Took s*** loads of photos, I've now got about a billion photos of coves, rocks sticking out of the sea, cliff edges and beaches. We walked back and went through Phiriri Grove on the way back, a bit pointless. When we got back to the camper we had lunch, Coops and I had cheese and cucumber sandwiches, the cheese had loads of mould on it and smelt really mature, the bread was also stale. Helen chose to have an apple, Helen eating fruit out of choice, whats going on? Rich had soup and Pat had noodles. We sat out on the grass to eat it and some freaky seagull with pure white eyes kept harrasing, in the end it ended up flying off with a slab of cheese.

We spent the rest of the day driving from Cathederal Cove to Rotorua, stopping for plenty of piss stops because of Coops' weak bladder. we pulled up on the side of the road about 30km away from Rotorua to drain our waste then parked up to cook. Helen and I chopped while Coops cooked a massaman curry with mango sauce. It was so nice, best meal we've cooked in the camper yet. We sat around and played a few rounds of P&A, after a while we all started to feel really cold, the outside temperature had plummeted and we all had to put socks on because our feet were like blocks of ice.