Waitangi Day at the Beach(es)

Monday, February 6, 2012

See the video we took here.

Our guest cottage at Hahei

Today is the New Zealand equivalent of the 4th of July.  It appears that they don’t do much with fireworks, hot dogs and parades but it is a holiday and people will be going places out of the ordinary.

One of those “out of the ordinary” places is Hot Water Beach and that’s on our list of places to see on this day.  The Coromandel Peninsula is also one of those special places in New Zealand that is on the “must see” list.  If you look at a map, it is the stubby finger of land on the right or eastern side of the North Island.  It begins after passing through the port city of Tauranga.  We were looking for a place to stay in the town of Hahei so we called a lodge called The Church.  (sounded ominous)  We eventually connected with Richard Agnew, the manager who was attending a birthday party.  He said the lodge was full and he thought finding a place in Hahei would be difficult because of the holiday weekend.  As an afterthought he asked if we would consider staying in a little cottage next to his house which he rented to friends.  Wow!  It turned out to be a great little place.

Not many here yet

So we headed for Hahei.  The Coromandel is hilly so the road winds around with hairpin turns, narrow, one land bridges and scenic views in all directions.  It’s a little hard to take in if you are behind the wheel.  There are small towns along the way and once in a while you will catch a glimpse of the blue Pacific, but the beaches are pretty secluded.  The peninsula was popularized back in the 1970’s when young twenty-somethings discovered it was a good place to be to “get away from it all.”  They needed some kind of livelihood so they made pottery and did other crafts to sell to tourists.  There are also sheep and dairy farms in the area.  Picture postcards would show a herd of black and white cows grazing on a green hill dotted with tall trees and sprinkled with flowers.

The crowd is gathering

The turn off to Hahei also listed two other attractions:  Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove.  The road winds around for about 10 km and then you enter town.  Guidebooks say the population is 270 in the winter and about 7000 in the summer.  There is a general store and a few small shops and signs indicating B & B’s, homestays, cottages and a few motels.  There is lots of activity at the General Store which is also a Takeaway burger stand and the town’s post office (post shop).

We went to The Church and got directions to Richard’s place, which was up a steep hill and about a mile from town.  There were private resiidences or retreats on both sides of the gravel road as we approached his place.  It sits on about 5 acres of land against the side of the hill and the little cottage is next door.  Quite a place.  The Church must be doing well.  (It’s called that because the restaurant is an old Methodist church that he moved to Hahei from some other place.)

Is it hot yet?

So today we wanted to see two beaches in the area and ended up at three.  Low tide was set for 12:22 pm, just after Noon and we were advised to show up at Hot Water Beach two hours before that to dig our “spa” on the beach.  We borrowed a spade from The Church and got to the beach before 10:00 am.  We weren’t the first.  It was cloudy, windy and the water was turbulent.  No surfers here today.  Several were standing on the beach and others were starting to dig.  We joined the diggers but the water that came up was cold.  A young lady pointed out that we needed to dig in just the right place to find hot water.  Since no one else was doing any digging, we stood around getting chilled by the wind coming off the ocean.

Cathedral Cove on the other side . . .

We decided to give up our prime parking place and come back later.  So we drove down the road and found another parking lot.  By the time we got out to the beach it was around 10:30 am and we noticed quite a crowd had gathered at the “hot water spot” we had vacated.  As we walked toward it, we saw more and more coming from the opposite direction.  Some were starting to dig and others just standing around.  By the time we got there, we sensed some excitement.  Some had struck paydirt or was it hot water?

Looking down from the trail (track)

From the signs posted by the DOC, we learned that there are some thermally heated rocks below the surface at this spot.  When the tide goes out, the water that seeps down through the sand hits these rocks and because it is warmed, it rises coming up through the sand in whatever pools are created for it.  The locals apparently know just where these underground hot spots are located and dig accordingly.  Quite a group was congregating in one spot.  We enjoyed being spectators and we could cross this one off our list of “must do’s.”

The other beach in the area that is popular is Cathedral Cove, but this being a holiday we thought it might be better to go after the crowds have thinned.  So we drove to overlook Cook’s Beach, named after Capt. James Cook, who anchored in waters out in the bay back in 1769.  While anchored there he view the passing of the planet Mercury overhead and named the location Mercury Bay.  Locals call in “Merc Bay.”  Closer to Cooks Beach is Lonely Bay and on this day it was indeed just that.

Back to Hahei, and turn left at the General Store to head for Cathedral Cove.  We bought some fish and chips at the Store (not recommended) ate them in our car and felt ready for a 45-minute hike to the Cove.  We arrived at the carpark and noted that most people were home eating their fish and chips.  The sun was dropping in the sky, the moon was coming up and so was the tide.  There are three coves in a row, the third being Cathedral, which is only accessible by walking through a hole in a large rock when the tide is just right.  Thus, the name Cathedral.

The hike took us up and down and around and included 157 steps, created just for the throngs of people who have popularized this spot.  It was also one of the scenes in the movie “Prince Caspian,” one of the Narnia series.  It was indeed a beautiful place.  We walked up and down the beach, took photos, and wished we had arrived earlier.  The high tide prevented us from going through the rock to Cathedral Cove.  But we can go home and watch the movie instead.

On this day we did little to celebrate Waitangi Day.  That would come in a couple more days.