Hot Water Beach by Mia

Yesterday we drove to Hot Water Beach on the Corromandel Peninsula and last night we stayed at the Hot Water beach holiday park. Even though this isn’t a particularly nice holiday park, it is still packed! The reason for this is the hot springs on the beach. Still, it’s weird how many people come to see something that is only accessible at low tide! We went to see them today and it was really cool. You dig a pool for yourself and hope you hit a spring. When we got to the beach it was totally packed and, since the springs are only in one area of the beach, it was in a really small space. We looked around for a spot for a bit but then we started digging a pool downstream of a really hot one so we could steal their heat (we are nice like that).  When we decided that it wasn’t warm enough we dug another pool on what we thought was at hot spring but actually wasn’t. What we ended up doing was making another pool and channelling hot water from the main spring, around which was a huge pool with smaller ones branching off of it that were built by people who were thinking along the same lines as we were. The main spring was bubbling (literally bubbling, I don’t know if it was boiling or if it was just normal behaviour of springs, but it was cool anyway) up from the middle of the big pool. The water was really hot! Zander burnt his feet from stepping in it. We were pretty far away from it so we had pretty good control over the temperature of our water, but the people closer to it were getting a bit burnt! The pool required constant maintenance because it would slowly fill up with sand that we had to dig out and put on the walls. Every once and a while a wave would come and work away at the walls of our pool so those needed maintenance to. Daddy lay in the water telling us when he got too cold so we could bring over some more hot water for him and dig out the pool or work on the walls. We left when the tide started to come in and a big wave broke the walls of our pool. Because we were lying in the sand the whole time, we were really sandy! The sand was the kind that sticks to you, so we all still had sand all over us until we got back and took a shower. I guess the reason that hot springs were so popular was because it was on the beach and you could make your own pools. Usually when you go to hot springs there are already built pools and you don’t get to see the water bubbling up from the ground. Also, it’s exciting to look for a spring! If you find one it’s so amazing because you feel like you discovered it all even though hundreds of people had probably discovered it before.

After the hot springs we ferried across the bay to the main town so we could get groceries. The bay is only like 100 yds across. It’s funny how they haven’t built a bridge yet! The guy who does the ferrying just drives his boat back and forth across the bay all day long. It only takes 5 min to get across and most of that time is docking! He makes good money though because everyone uses the ferry. The alternative is a 45 min drive all the way around the bay! If a bridge was built he would definitely be out of a job. That’s probably why they haven’t built a bridge yet. In the town (it starts with a W. that’s all I know) we went to the grocery store which was 3 blocks away from the waterfront. We stopped at Liquorland on the way because daddy assigned us a math problem figuring out how to buy the most alcohol for the least money. I’m pricing beer and Zander is doing spirits. I have a feeling there were some different motives involved in the assigning of this problem besides getting us better at math (perhaps daddy wants to know the cheapest way to get the most alcohol…).

After the five minute ferry ride back to our side of the bay, we started driving back to the holiday park. We picked up a hitch hiker, which we have never done before and it was quite interesting. It was an oldish lady from Britain who was visiting a friend who lived on a vineyard that was on the way to our holiday park. We told her our story, which has turned into a scripted conversation: Stranger: ‘So, where are you from!’ Daddy: ‘The States, California’ Stranger: ‘Cool, where in Cali?’ Daddy: San Luis Obispo—its halfway between San Fran and LA.’ Stranger: ‘Sweet as. So, are you on holiday here?’ Daddy: ‘Sort of, we are traveling around the world for a year!’ Stranger: ‘Wow!! You are really brave! With all these kids!!!’  From there it goes into a description of our itinerary and the person exclaiming about how great it will be for us and how much they wish they could do it to. I sort of tune out.  Then she talked about how cheap stuff is in Bali and how great shopping it will be (man, I am sooo excited for that!) and how amazing NZ is and we talked about all the backpacks we had been on. She had been on a few herself and we talked about that for a while. It’s cool how we can pick up a total stranger from the side of the road and find we have a bit in common with them! We are pretty used to talking to strangers now because of all the strangers we had met in the huts of all our treks. It was kind of cool! When we got back to the holiday park we all showered to get all the sand out of our crevices and ate yummy dinner!! It was a good day!!