We had a lay in this morning which was nice and then a quick shower and cup of tea before we headed out on the road...we decided that we defiantly wasn't going to do any of the gorge walks after last nights fiasco even though our legs almost feel normal again.

Before we left Waihi we stopped to look at the mine which the town is famous for. (gold mining has been going on for over 300 years there) and this mine is massive, I have never seen a hole in the earth that big before and then it was back in the car with a steak and mushroom pie for brekkie and upwards to Whangamata.

It was a scenic drive like most drives in New Zealand and we reached our destination in no time at all....at least that is what it seems. I kept dosing off :)

We arrived in Whangamata, it was a quirk beach, surf town. We could have spend a few $$ there on clothes. The weather was still a bit over cast but determined to make the most of it we hired a kayak...no thanks to Donald at the information centre....and headed out into the open water to try and reach Whenuakura 'donut' Island. The journey started off fine until we had to paddle out of the estuary on to the breaking waves, the kayak almost tipped each time a wave broke. Mark had to get out and drag me and the kayak past the waves!!! We were finally out at sea paddling away and the sun was breaking through the clouds...the day was looking up.

There were three main islands that we could see and we only guessed and hoped it was the closes one to us as we had already been told that you could not go on the islands, but you could paddle inside....needless to say we kayaked all the way round Whenuakura and Hauturu Islands and Maukaha rocks.

I am positive that I saw an entrance to 'Doughnut' Island, however the waves were crashing in and it didn't look like we would get through in one piece so we carried on looking for another way in...nothing. Time on the hire running low and energy lacking we paddled back to shore, I kept stopping so the waves would carry us in not realising that this kept tipping the kayak and Mark had to keep jumping out to stop us going in.....I had fun at least :) The funniest line was when we were heading back we passed a couple heading to the Island. The guy said to Mark, 'you been to the island' and Mark replied ' Na couldnt find them' lol and the guy was like 'couldnt find them' with a puzzled look on his face, not releasing Mark was talking about the enterance and not the 3 huge islands behind us.

Feeling refreshed and pumped we jumped back in the car and headed further up the Coromandel Peninsula to Hot Water Beach, a section of the beach has an old volcanic spring underneath that heat the water flow to a max of 65 degrees!....you could see the steam coming off the sand and it was rammed when we arrived and we seemed to be the only people without shovels. You had to dig to the sand to build your own hot pool. We spotted a few empty pools so we went over to try them, no wonder the pools were empty. It must have been about 65 degrees. You had to dig in the right place to get a good mixture of hot and cold. We found a perfect spot and started digging with out hands.

Mark did a wonderful job of digging our pool while I helped occasionally, we finally finished digging and chilled out in our very own natural hot pool....it was bliss, Mark had a full body exfoliation with the sand and I splashed around. It was relaxing. It was hard to dig deep holes as the sand kept collapsing in. We enjoyed the sea as well before heading back.
We headed into Hahei to find accommodation for the night and found a cute little cabin in a holiday park. We showered and headed out for dinner as we were starved. There was only one restaurant in town called The Church...it was a cute little place with delicious tapas that we wolfed down, even asking for extra bread to mop up the sauce from he mussels. Now it is off to bed to get ready for another day.