This is a place I was tempted to skip on my travel blog. Must be not that great huh?
Wrong!
It's definitely worth stopping for if you've never experienced anything like it before, and I can tell you now, I hadn't!
No, the only reason I would of skipped this is because I was so busy enjoying myself I didn't take any pictures! I was too busy soaking in the atmosphere, quite literally! Seeing is believing right?
Where is it?
*Hot water beach is situated on the North Eastern Coast, North Island, New Zealand. (The Coromandel) Just south of Mercury Bay
Of course, you can just type it into google, but I thought I'd be helpful 😉
What is hot water beach?
It's a beach with 'thermal activity' running underground and in some places not far at all! (I got burnt)
You really have to watch your step. It's like a minefield, one false step and you will get burn ...instantly.
What this means is you can dig your very own hot tub as the water is boiling hot just inches under the sand. At the same time you have the sea washing in which is pretty cold so if you're close to the sea like i was, you get a chill every now and then and then instantly warmed up!
I bet you looked at the main picture and thought wooooowww I wanna go there. I'm not gonna lie, as I mentioned before in my Great Barrier Reef blog photo's can be decieving and it's more like this.
Slightly different.
I don't like to lie in my blogs you see. I can't stand those bloggers that google the best picture possible (which is what I did for thr thumbnail ☺) and then tell you it's exactly like that because it's not. Yet people fall for it...including me.
But before you downvote this post, I can 100% guarantee you that in this place, it really doesn't matter if it's busy. It's really funny watching someone build their hole really close to the sea only to get washed away seconds later tehehe.
No seriously, having other people there is great! A family let us use their perfectly dug hot tub which was spot on tempreture wise. Another helped us dig ours and built a wall to protect it. I felt like a kid building sand castles, it was great! That's what I love about New Zealand and being on holiday. People are so freindly. We're all there for a good time and help each other. Complete strangers lending buckets, spades and hands to build a fortress of hot tubs facing the sea. Awesome!
One thing I should mention is rent a spade! If you did too deep with your hands you will get burnt I can't stress that enough. Some places its hot, others nothing and others aaahhh f*ck!
Like I said, it's like a minefield.
If you're an engineering genius like me 😏 then it's a good idea to take a look at where the tide line is and whether it's going in or out. In my case, the tide was coming in so I built mine a few meters away. The hole then fills up with cold water and while I was in it all I needed to do was dig till i got the right tempreture.
Smart see 😊
Or you could just use someone elses when they leave hehehe 🙊
Either way laying in yes in the beach being heated by the earth itself and refreshed every now and again by the sea is an incredible experience and one I didn't even know existed until I got there.
As I watched the tide slowly creep in I watched families and backpackers start to retreat as the waves instantly smoothed over the beach. Some even shouted "fall back" as if we were under enemy fire! And some like me tried to see how long we could last! Waves came in and washed everything away but me and a load of other's stood our ground. The hot tubs were all broken into meaning all the hot water had escaped into the sea but this meant that the sea was alot warmer so instead of a hot tub it was now a luke warm bath!
What an incredible experience that was, but I had no idea of what awaited me further south...