Today, we started heading south. First stop was back to Orewa to have the water pump swapped over. The new pump was actually waiting for us when we arrived, and swapped over within the hour, and actually works! How about that for service?!

We then continued on our journey to the Coromandel Peninsula, west of Auckland. We stayed a few minutes walk away from Hot Water Beach.

Unfortunately, I haven't posted up any pictures, as I didn't bother to take my camera. (we took a waterproof disposal instead.) Probably just as well, as the way things work, is you turn up at the beach around two hours before low tide, and dig a hole. You can't go very deep, because the sand is so wet, but it does fill up with hot water from below ground. Essentially, there is a pool of hot water around 2km below the surface. At low tide, you can get access to the beach where it bubbles close to the surface, at around 70 degrees. So, picture the scene: loads of tourists with buckets and spades, digging themselves little paddling pools in the beach. It was a good atmosphere though, with everyone shouting out warnings about where the water was too hot to sit in.

In true NZ style, it started to drizzle, so after about half an hour of sitting in 4 inches of warm water, we headed back to our camper.