Hot Water Beach And Cathedral Cove

The coromandel peninsula in New Zealand is just east of Auckland and is stunningly beautiful.  It presents miles and miles of winding coastline, peppered with small and large islands, some rocky, most with vegetation.  Pictures don’t do it justice!

There are many neat rocky artifacts, including this large natural rock arch in Cathedral Cove:
 

Nearby Stingray Bay was wonderfully picturesque, though we didn’t have time or wetsuits to figure out if it lives up to its name:

On the east side of the peninsula is Hot Water Beach, a thermally active area which has hot springs coming out of the ground near the coast, on the beach and even in the water.  The water is scaldingly hot in some places.

We ended up digging a pool near one of these hot water jets (comes out of the sand) and would use a bucket to mix refreshingly cold sea water with the hot fresh water.  We had a relaxing soak for about an hour, before the tide started to come in!

Cape Reinga & Dunes

We drove north from Auckland, through Russell and the Bay of Islands (where we did a couple of scuba dives!), to eventually arrive at Cape Reinga, the northernmost point in New Zealand.

We stopped at the steep sand dunes of Te Paki to try out some sandboarding, and despite the cold weather and strong wind, we weren't disappointed! (A few years ago some friends and I tried to sandboard down the dunes outside San Luis Obispo, but had tried with a modified snowboard.  We were unsuccessful; we couldn’t get any speed.  I think the dunes there are a bit less steep than these in NZ, and also I think our pressure on the sand was higher due to a smaller surface area, but I’m not positive.)


About to ride down the dune!

Here's a video of MS doing a half-run - definitely one of our shorter runs of the day, as we tested the sand a bit:

Finally at the cape, we found a beautiful clashing of the Tasman Sea and the Pacific ocean.  Huge storm was brewing, with lots of whitecaps on the sea, and strong winds.


 
The wind and rainbow were in sync:
 
The sea was angry that day:

The actual northernmost point (north is to the left in this photo):

Kerosene Bicycle Lamps

   Quick post on a bicycle that lives in the Te Papa Museum in Wellington, New Zealand.  This bike is awesome, mainly due to its functional styling in the traditional ladies riding style (British, which is not too far off from Dutch). 

Specifically, though, it is awesome due to its front and rear lights, which are not electric, but rather fossil fuel powered - I hadn't seen this for bicycles before.  I believe they're kerosene lamps!

(Yeah, I'm an environmentally conscious person, but I like these because they're bicycle related - very much more environmentally friendly than fossil-fuel car or even horse power, I believe.)