New Zealand-Day 3

On Day 3 in NZ, we planned on doing our 1 day hike but this time we ran into another problem. You know how Stan messed up his ACL and fractured his bone and has been doing all this physio? Well, the morning of the hike he went out for a run and after about a mile his knee had gone stiff. So we canned the hike, got back in the car and drove up north to the bay of islands.

We had bribed the kids with jade Maori necklaces if they could hang in there for an 18 mile hike. They didn't know how long 18 miles was, so when we took them on a half mile hike up Mount Maunganui (an inactive volcano) they were pretty proud of themselves.

There are sheep EVERYWHERE in New Zealand!

Here we are driving up to the bay of plenty

After the hike we went further north up to Coromondel and made it just in time to participate in a crazy phenomenon called the hot water beaches.

You can only show up when the tide is out (sunset), you dig a hole in the sand and sit in your own little hot tub...and I mean HOT....

This is the only spot on the beach you can do it. I guess a long time ago there was an active volcano nearby, and the steam from the lava has been trapped under the sand for thousands of years. When you move the sand (or dig really deep) you release the steam. If you dig too fast you literally burn yourself. With the tide nearby you can grab cold water and cool off your hot tub pit.

Here is our pit.

Sitting in the hot water.

Mary cooling off

After the hot water beach, we went over to Cathedral Cove which is also time sensitive to the tide being out. When the tide is in the beach is covered up and you can't get to the rock formations. We were cutting it close but made it down the trail in record time (usually a 45 min hike). We ran and saw this....
Here we are in a pirate cave. By the time we finished taking pictures in here the water was up to our shins. We headed out and made it back up the trail by night fall. Fantastic day!