Its crazy how the time flies when you're having fun. We were already coming up fast on our last few days with Megan, but we wouldn't be letting her go without sharing a few more amazing experiences. First of those was a day at New Chums Beach - rated as one of the top ten beaches in the world by The Observer in 2006. What makes New Chums unique that it is one of the few undeveloped beaches left on the Coromandel Peninsula, making it one of the few places actually deserving of the 100% New Zealand Pure moniker. A brief 30 minute hike from the car park at Whangapoua Beach brings you along a rocky headland and up and over a low saddle before finally delivering you to this bush backed slice of heaven. Walking through the forest just before we emerged onto the beach was giving me flash backs of Costa Rica where jungle meets sand. Whereas Cathedral Cove was great for some old fashioned fun in the sun, New Chums is all romance. It is a beach for languid strolls and quiet contemplation. One such stroll along the beach revealed a few shallow sun heated lagoons perfect for soaking after a dip in the cool ocean, and if the sun became too intense you could always retire to the shade of the pohutukawas lining the beach.
After a refreshing day at an empty beach it would be back to the mainstream tourism track with a trip to the ever crowded but uniquely spectacular Hot Water Beach. Here's the deal - at low tide a small portion of this beach exudes hot water form beneath the sand! We rented a spade and took to the beach to carve out our perfect little hot pool just as it started to rain. It turned out to be far more difficult than anyone had originally imagined, as each time you started to make some progress a rogue wave would come up and steam roll all of your hard work. After a few tries more people started to show up at the beach attempting to dig their hot pools in front of ours. To their bane and our boon, each time a rogue wave hit their pools would break it up just enough that our sand walls would hold. Eventually we had ourselves a pool perfectly sized for three people to lay flat in.
As we soaked we partook in the other joy of Hot Water Beach - people watching. Some people were having a tough time getting the pools warm enough for soaking, and others with keeping them cool. Despite the hard work that goes into making them, a number of pools went abandoned. The pool just in front of ours was so hot that steam was rising from the top, and we giggled amongst ourselves as newcomers would timidly creep up and tryout this freebie. They would stick a foot in, and a look of shock and pain would sweep across their face as they recoiled from the heat. Eventually we decided it was time to relinquish our goldilocks pool to some other group and took our leave. We drove back to our campsite and enjoyed one last drink with Megan before we dropped her off at the Auckland airport the following day. We had tons-o-fun while she was here and she kept us laughing the whole way. See you in Australia!
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