Due to the fact that my tattoo had run over into two days Tom and Rachel went ahead to scout out a campsite and buy food for dinner so all we had to do was roll up in the van with beer and bobs your uncle. As the campsite was in the middle of the bush and it was a hot night we sat out under the stars chatting away and myself and Tom did some fair justice to a couple of packs of beer.
The following morning the weather continued with its clear skies and blazing sunshine, and my thigh had turned an interesting colour and was incredibly sore. I decided to bail out of the walk to the nearby waterfalls so I stayed at the campsite, cranked up the music and worked on my tan whilst the others went and expended energy walking to the falls.
It was a pleasant walk to the falls and we certainly weren't expecting them to be as spectacular as they turned out to be. A double drop with a crystal pool in between, each at least 30 metres in height. We climbed to the top and got a dizzying look over the edge then walked out to a view point before climbing down to the pool at the bottom. It was a bit to cold for any of us to dare a swim but a really nice place for a rest before the return walk to the camp where Paul was waiting.
Upon their return we headed on up the coast towards hot water beach. We knew that the low tide was due at 8:20 that evening so had a few hours to kill. We decided that as the weather was still glorious we should hit the beach and where better to head out to than Cathedral Cove. After a short stroll we got down to the beach as hoards of the "Kiwi Experience" annoying "kids" were traipsing up the track. We had a walk along the beach from one end to the other and through the huge hollowed out sea arch to the equally amazing beach the other side. This was all very nice but not the reason that we had made the special journey up the peninsular. The purpose of this trip was to visit hot water beach. We turned up, as the guidebook suggested, in the 2hour window either side of low tide. This particular spot of beach has a lot of geothermal activity just below the surface and a quick dig with a spade in the sand uncovers the superheated water. As the receding tide washes into this hole you have dug the water that is left behind is heated and you create your own personal spa pool.
Now as I had what is best described as an open wound on my thigh I though that sharing a dirty pool with all and sundry would probably be a bad thing and I took my place on a rocky outcrop to watch the other three at work.
Firstly you need to stake a claim to a specific area of beach. Now not every part of the sand is heated, so, a lot of digging with the feet happens first until, like Michael Barrymore, you find a hotspot! Once you have staked a claim to this prime piece of beach you get digging. Now Tom, Rachel an Katie did not have a shovel so they got down on their hands and knees and started digging. Every time they built a small breakwater and looked like a hole was being constructed a freak wave would wipe out all their hard work. This didn't seem to bother them as they simply started again, but some people on the beach took this very seriously, acting as if the Nazi's had reformed in the shape of the sea and were looking to invade their personal Poland.
Eventually between the three of them they managed to get something resembling a wallow so I'll let Katie explain what it was like to sink into one of the pools in her own words.
Our personalised spa baths were small and therefore prone to the kind of hotspots that had us gasping and bouncing around on our backsides. We were also frequently invaded by cold waves washing our defences away so it wasn't long before the novelty was wearing off. When some neighbours vacated their big spa that they'd used a couple of shovels to build we leapt in before anyone else could and enjoyed a few minutes of deep and warm water luxury. By this time the big tour groups were turning up so we left them to it, returning to the vans and back the campsite for the night.