Our First Holiday in En Zid...

Whilst we’ve been here, we’ve had a bit of a chance to get out and see a few sights. The weekend before Aaron started shiftwork we decided to get out and travel north up the Coromandel Peninsula. Its very picturesque and we stopped at places like Hot Water Beach, Whitianga, Coromandel Town and Thames. Hot Water Beach is literally a beach with hot water. The surf is cold but underneath the sand there are remnants of volcanic activity which heats underground water and pushes it to the surface. By the time it reaches the sand, the water has cooled down to between 50 and 60^oC and so you get yourself a shovel and dig yourself a warm bath on the beach. We arrived a little early, and so had to wait for the tide to recede a bit before we could start digging. In this time, about 50 crazy, pasty white poms and other assorted tourists turned up and started shovelling sand like crazy. We got to have a bit of a splash around in the warmth but left them too it after a while. We also made a visit to the Kauri Grove to check out the massive Kauri trees, to the Coromandel Town Smokehouse where got some lovely hot smoked salmon and lime and pepper smoked trevally. Combine that with the cheeses we bought just outside Thames and dinner that evening was sorted. Delicious! All in all, a good weekend.