Hahei is a good base to explore the two most popular tourist destinations in the Coromandel. Cathedral Cove is just a couple of kms from the Holiday Park and Hot Water Beach is 8 kms down the road.
We started early again, its hard to sleep much past dawn, the light creeps through the hatches and gently wakes you up. Rosie and the Operator would rather start early and kick back mid afternoon after seeing everything we want to in the day. At 8.30am we were looking down on this vista of Hahei from the Cathedral Cove Carpark, you can walk to the start point from the Holiday Park, it would take about an hour and as you can see it is a steep climb from the beach…Rosie is glad we drove.
They say the walk is an easy one down to the Cove and is posted for 45 mins. It is an accurate indication if you wander and need to rest on the way, there are some steep parts as you wind up and down the ridges but the track is wide and easily navigated, Rosie would recommend good footwear. This view to the right is the outlook at the top of the track looking down into Stingray Bay.
As we trekked down the path a few couples were coming up having already visited, we were thinking we may be lucky as there was only about half a dozen cars in the carpark when we started, hopefully that means the beach will not have too many people on it!
The steep staircase takes you down to the cove and you exit from dim bush into the pure white light and the step onto the pristine white beach. It looked and felt so remote and untouched. We were lucky, other than a few footprints in the sand there was only one other 
couple there to share the beauty with. The
early morning light was soft and all you could hear was the surge of the sea and a couple of seagulls wheeling and calling overhead. The beach you enter and first see is
quite small, turn to your left and there she is, the hole in the rock that marks the iconic entrance to Cathedral Cove.
Rosie and the Operator wandered, reflected and explored for about half an hour.
Other visitors started trickling onto the beach ,so, Rosie and The Operator started the hike back to the camper. It was a hard climb going back….Rosie was puffing like a steam train
not able to get enough oxygen in her lungs….The Operator just seems to dawdle in front of Rosie, no effort expended whatsoever. Rosie has a deal with The Operator at times like this….while Rosie slogs on head down puffing and wheezing The Operator keeps a look out and alerts Rosie when people are approaching along the track…Rosie then holds her breath and forces a smile as they past so they dont hear her gasping…and in some cases moaning….well, in most cases moaning. We are glad we went early to experience a private viewing of the Cove, at least 60 people passed us on the track going down…Rosie felt very satisfied, the walk was certainly worth the memory and impression it left on me.
Back at the carpark Rosie collapsed in the cab of the camper, it was still only 10.00am so we decided to head on down to Hot Water Beach for a looksey. This bay is not very big and gets hundreds of visitors a day for the strange phenomenon it possess. For two hours either side of low tide, you can access an area of sand in front of a rocky outcrop in the middle of the beach where hot water oozes up through the surface. Bring a spade (or hire one from the beach cafe), dig a hole and voila, you have your own personal pool of hot water to relax in.
Hot Water Beach itself was good surf breaks but has terrible rips, especially in front of the Hot Beach area, the beach has one of the highest drowning stats in NZ, attributed by the shear numbers of people who go there. This beach is patrolled by Surf Lifesavers so please be careful and swim between the flags so they can keep an eye on you.
Rosie and the Operator arrived at the beach one and a half hours before low tide….we walked through the heavy sand round the corner of the wee headland and there it was…
…already a hundred odd people were standing in some cases up to their waists in the water, staking there claim on a patch of sand and patiently waiting for the tide to go out. It was kind of quiet and everyone was looking out to sea as if they were waiting for the second coming or something, a couple of young guys were running around with their shovel digging wee holes in the sand asking each other ‘is it hot is it hot?’…they were so excited. Rosie wasnt subscribing to the hype but did edge over and discreetly put her toe in one of the holes, The Operator raised his eyebrow, well?…Rosie shook her head…cold as. Rosie and The Operator kind of hung around and
watched from the fringes. More and more people were arriving, the beach was going to be packed and their was still one hour to go till low tide. The Operator pulled the plug, Rosie gladly followed, she has an aversion to having anyone in her private space….lying next to people, jammed in like sardines, in a shallow hole of hot water, getting sand in your arse crack and then having to walk back to the camper while it chaffs all the way…not Rosies cup of tea. Lets go back and have a coffee Operator! Hot Water Beach – Rosie doesn’t get it!
We took a detour on the way back to Hahei past a macadaemia farm, Rosie has just discovered these creamy, smooth delish morsels. The nuts are grown on the 16 hectare lifestyle block at Cathedral Cove Macadaemias and they have a neat caravan they sell wares from as well as tow it to markets and festivals, their claim to fame for this farm is that Al Brown stopped here on his TV programme Hunger for the Wild and bought macadaemias to use as a crumb for scallops, the recipee is proudly displayed on a blackboard in the caravan. I bought a pack of Macs covered in dark belgium choclate…the pack aread ‘to be shared with friends’…wish I had read that before I scoffed the lot……
The most stunning view of the day was up the top of Shakespeare Lookout looking down over little lLonely Beach in the foreground and seeing the expanse of Mecury Bay spread out in a perfect horsehoe. A marker at the top of the lookout reads, ‘ In this bay was anchored 5 -15 November 1769 HMS Endeavour – Captain James Cook witnessed the transit of Mecury and hence named the bay’. The awe inspiring part of that memo was image if you were a native maori, standing on this lookout and seeing this huge three masted ship coming into the harbour under full sail and stopping there, having never seen anything like that before in your life, the image would have been astounding….you can imagine the Endeavour anchored there so vividly…..awesome!
Tomorrow is Day 5, Rosie likes to refer to this black day as Double Disaster Day…..it was a long one, and a trying one…camping at its worst….
