New Zealand, Cambodia, and more OH MY! : Coromandel

I made the last minute decision on Friday to leave everyone and the city behind. I hopped on the ferry in the morning and headed over to the Coromandel peninsula. To say the water was rough was an understatement. You did not stand outside on the ferry unless you wanted to take a shower. I loved it though!

We pulled into the Coromandel Warf around 11.

Upon my arrival it was brought to my attention that I had failed to look at a map of the peninsula and the hostel that I had booked was actually about an hour and half away at hot water beach. Oops! In my defense the two are always associated, so I just assumed they were together. Luckily it was no problem, the ferry company reserved a room for me at one of the hostels in Coromandel and organized for me to go to hot water beach and cathedral cove the next day before I headed back on the ferry in the evening! One of the many perks of New Zealand; everyone is very flexible and helpful!

That afternoon I took one of the free bikes (very common in New Zealand) on a 5 km bike ride to the local Kauri reserve. There was only one Kauri tree but the walk was really pretty and had many things for me to photograph.

On the bike ride back I stopped at the local fishing boat dock and spent time looking out over the water. I also saw the cutest kids fishing with their parents off the dock, and a really cool old jeep.

The next day, besides daylight savings trying to work against me, I was up with sun.

It was off to hot water beach to make low tide. The way this beach works is that at low tide you can dig yourself a little thermal hole in the sand due to the hot water running in underneath the sand. It was amazing. I was sitting on the beach in warm water, just a few meters away from the freezing cold ocean.