Too Hot, Too Cold!

We are never satisfied are we? The weather is always too windy, too hot, too gloomy never too perfect. That was exactly us at Hot Water Beach. A storm had hit New Zealand and the weather just turned from nice and sunny to wet and windy for a couple of days so we thought Hot Water Beach would be a perfect fit for that. It was such an experience and met a couple of cool people to share that with. Francisco, Pauline and Cecilia glad we met you guys and spent time together for the whole time we were in Hot Water Beach & Cathedral Cove.

- Hot Water Beach at sunrise -

We stayed at Aunty Dawns Place which was just a couple of minutes walk down to the beach. You can only start digging the hole for the hot water bath as soon as the tide is low enough and we should say - get tips and tricks from the locals. They knew exactly where to start digging and got the right spot. Lucky! Poor Steve and Francisco had to try three different holes till we got the right spot. Thanks guys! The water temperature reaches 60 degrees celcius so getting the mixture between the hot stream and cold stream was definitely a challenge as it was from the opposite end of the pool we dug. That being said it was still so nice being in a nice hot bath (at times too hot) on a windy and wet day. Oh and getting out of it when the tides up was definitely another task as we finally left when the sun had set and the temperature dropped lots!

- Francisco and Steve working really hard to get the hot bath ready -

Aunty Dawns Place was a cosy little spot which we only had to pay $20 per night / pax and they had full amenities from kitchen, hot water shower (bliss!), lent the spades and buckets for the beach, plum trees with lots and lots of fruits (we were so plum'd out by the time we were done with all that we picked). They even had a stream on their property that was filled with massive eels. Never have we seen so many eels in our life though we saw lots during our diving days but this was just another level.

- The Cathedral Cove -

The next morning we checked out and headed to Cathedral Cove where we started the track from Hahei Beach (40 mins one way). Its crazy to think that the beaches / coasts here looks so much like Thailand. If it wasn't for the weather, temperature & marine life we would have not been able to tell the difference. Cathedral Cove is a beautiful spot but just too touristy for our liking so ended up taking a couple of pics and headed straight to Stingray Bay. Which was a much smaller bay, less people and just as beautiful. Chilled there for a bit and went snorkelling in the icy cold water :)

- The view from the lookout point hike by Cathedral Cove -

We then decided to chill with the crew before we went separate ways and our friend had recommended to go visit the Hot Water Brewery and made Ili the happiest as they served some really good seafood wood fired oven pizzas. We had one with mussels, prawns and anchovies! YUMMY! Served with a top notch home bred 'Trinidad Moruga Scorpion' chilli peppers. Honestly the best chilli flakes ever. So good that Ili's ears felt like it was on fire :D and that we had asked if we could buy some to have in the van. Happy times!

- Ili's current favourite chilli flakes in the whole wide world! -