Hot Water Havoc

From Northland we headed south-east to the Coromandel peninsular, and a beach which is much more famous than Kawhia for also having a hot water spring beneath its sands. It is even called 'Hot Water Beach' with a whole holiday park and collection of motels with similarly imaginative names dedicated to serving its visitors.

As you can see, it's not the calm affair of Kawhia beach, and certainly less than relaxing. We went at night for a slightly less crowded experience, but it was still chocka. The daytime experience is pretty awful:



It was much harder work too, as the waves keep coming very close and you need to build strong defensive walls to keep the cold water out and hot water in!



The other problem was the temperature - almost 65 degrees C. That is quite unpleasantly hot. If you look carefully at the above picture, the middle pool is empty save for a brave few paddlers all standing right on the edge. This is the only area with water with any special properties though, so the pools either side are probably pretty chilly. Most people aren't getting anything different than if they dug a deep hole on any beach! For the perfect experience you need to channel the hot water into the other cooler pools in a highly complex coordinated fashion, and even then only a handful of people are going to be catered for! Simple message - go to Kawhia beach instead.