Hot Water Beach is on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula. Its name comes from underground, natural hot springs which filter up through the sand between the high and low water tidal reaches. Make sure you visit this stunning geothermal attraction and stay at the new Hot Water Beach Holiday Park , the only holiday park in the Hot Water Beach area. A talk on the basal phylogeny of the angiosperms, we went back to our caravan to shower, borrowed trowels, and headed to Hot Water beach, where everyone else from the conference was going. We joined the crowds dug into the beach around the hot springs, and had fun engineering channels to try to get the right amount of hot water. Then it was back to the same pub — it was that or Chinese — where we had pizza and ate apples.Tuesday was the "free" day at the conference. We did some washing, had breakfast with coffee of dishwashing liquid quality, and then drove to Hahei (near Hot Water Beach). We hired snorkeling gear and did the Gemstone Bay "snorkeling trail", which has numbered buoys with information. It was a bit mirky and there wasn't that much to be seen, but good fun. And we had the bay pretty much to ourselves, too!
After that we walked to Cathedral Cove, along with hundreds of other people. After a quick visit to the pa on the headland south of Hot Water beach, we drove north to the Eggcentric cafe for coffee and cake, and then to the ferry landing — this was maybe 100 metres from where we were staying in Whitianga, but it was a 40 kilometre drive to get back!
Then it was back to the conference venue for a barbecue, after which we walked along the beach, ate ice cream, and just fitted in a visit to an Internet cafe before it closed at 9pm.
