Whangamata - Day 5: Hot Water Beach trip

Feb. 27, 2011
Surf sessions = 15
Km Driven = 5450
No trip to the Coromandel Peninsula is complete without a trip to Hot Water Beach.

People 200 m in the backgound digging for "hot water gold"!

This beach has an interesting geologic oddity...a hot geothermal stream that surfaces just at the water level at low tide! Now when I say "hot" I mean scalding in some spots. We arrived a bit late (2 hours after low tide...it is recommended to arrive about 1-1/2 hours prior and to leave about 1-1/2 hours after low tide...for best results!) so the crowds were gone, but so was access to "real" hot water. We dug our own hole to see if we could get some of that soothing hot water on our toes only to be met with a little tepid water

Hmmm...kinda warm but those waves sure are gettin' close!

and a quickly rising tide which eventually "claimed" our little hot water kingdom.

Oh no! Here it comes! Maia bails on the "kingdom".

Alisa is left with "flood damage"

This place is really great. Hordes of people show up with all manner of digging implements (you can rent a spade for $5/day at a shop at the end of the beach) and get to the task of digging large "tubs" in the sand. A variety of problems exist as there is a very hot geothermal "river" running underneath you from large rock outcrops above the beach...some parts are too hot, some too cool, and some just right.

Hot water emanates beneath the sand from underneath colored rocks like these 100 m down the beach.

There is a mad scramble to "claim" real estate and stake out your own property lines in the wet sand. Then there is the problem with wet sand...it likes to cave in! More frequently than not, the hole you dig collapses on one side and "joins" with the one next door, either sucking their hot water into yours (if yours is deeper) or vice versa. Then there is the problem we witnessed a few days ago of two middle aged women who "claimed" a large tub dug by a family after they left...and proceeded to lay out like 2 beached whales all the while sneering at the surrounding mob to keep them at bay and not "share" their tub. All in all, more novelty than relaxation...but really funny to watch. And THEN...the tide ALWAYS comes in eventually...sweeping away countless man/woman/kid-hours of toil in a matter of about 30 minutes. That part is really fun to watch...people act as if something they "owned" got stolen from them...human beings are funny creatures!
George got 2 surf sessions in; one just adjacent to the hot water madness early in the day and then another at a reef break further south about 300 meters. The second session was brought on by being "forced" to watch another surfer catch nice shoulder high peelers...all by himself in the lineup. This was just too much for George to take and he proceeded to paddle out. He struck up a nice conversation with the bloke out in the water who commented on how he was surprised that he had the break to himself on such a nice day (he lived directly above the break). George owned up to the fact that it was "too painful to watch a single surfer getting such nice waves all to himself". The local just laughed and they shared a good 1-1/2 hours of perfect rights which were "leftovers" from the week's cyclone.