January 5th, 2020
Low tide was at 9 am but I doddled a bit leaving the
campsite as I hadn’t slept terribly well the night before, plus I wanted to
have a fried egg with toast breakfast.
Most of my time in New Zealand my breakfasts have been simple, yogurt
with some granola. But when I have the
luxury of access to a toaster, well it’s time for something different.
I arrived at Hot Water Beach around 10 am, still within the
recommended time to visit. I stopped in
a café before the beach to rent, or sorry in this country “hire”, a spade for
$5 plus a $20 deposit. A café closer to
the beach was $10 so my scouting from yesterday paid off. Seemed a bit funny to walk up to the counter
of a dining establishment with breakfast muffins and croissants behind a glass casing
and ask for a shovel. And sure enough
the lady reached down below the counter and pulled out a digging tool.
Even though I’d visited the beach yesterday, I didn’t walk
far out onto it so I didn’t know how much of the beach usable for this
endeavour, and it turns out, not much.
There was probably a 30-50 meter wide area where a throng of humanity
was congregated. Closer to the water
there were some individuals lying in pools, further up the beach some guys
looked like they were digging to China and the majority of people were standing
around taking in the spectacle. From
later research I found out that there are a couple of geothermal fissures that
filter hot water up to the surface that can be as hot as 64 degrees Celsius!
That was not exactly what was happening when I was
there. There were 3-4 pools with 3-4
people lounging in each of them. Their
water level was only about a foot deep.
A few abandoned pools were here and there and I stuck my foot in a few
of them and found out why they were abandoned…cold. People further away from the water had to dig
deeper, or at least that’s what they thought, but I didn’t see any of them
having success…just getting a good work out.
I did wander by one of the pools by the shoreline with some people lounging
in and quickly stuck my toes in and yes, it was warm, not quite hot tub warm
but decent. I think being there half an
hour before low tide would be key but I never imagined it being so busy. So I wandered back to the café after about
half an hour, having just paid $5 to take a shovel for a walk.
Look how deep these guys are:
Some abandoned pools:
It looks like a quiet beach, all the mayhem is just around the corner above the people.
Continuing north up the Coromandel Peninsula, I saw on
CamperMate a hobby farm called Whiti Farm Park that sounded interesting. I pulled into the small unpaved parking lot
and was immediately greeted by a couple of dogs, one little guy and a mid sized
part border collie who looked to be in his senior years. They were both super friendly and quite the
welcoming committee.
The entrance fee was $10 and it was totally worth it. You could buy some pellets to feed some of
the animals, but I opted not to. There
were turtles, budgies, chickens, goats, miniature horses, a boar, rabbits,
donkeys and even some exotic animals like emus and ostriches. The layout of the place was fantastic, including
a “secret garden” area. I was kind of
surprised to see a couple of enclosed areas with cats in them. One had all the females and the other the
single “cat of the house”.
Miniature horse:
Love it!
You could tell that the farmers really loved their animals as there were a few signs here and there of “past stars”, animals that had died but had played a special role at the farm. My favourite was a border collie who was there for 10 years and every day he’d be waiting for the gates to open in the morning. He was the guide. He’d greet people in the parking lot, show them the way to the reception to buy their ticket and then walk them around the farm. Supposedly he was the star of the place and even visitors who had a slight fear of dogs were comfortable with him. Super cool.
There was an interesting deer who had a condition where his
antlers didn’t shed the velvet that forms at the start of the growth process
due to an imbalance in testosterone levels.
The farm hand raised this deer although they didn’t elaborate on how he
came into their possession and they had to have him castrated by a vet as
otherwise he would be aggressive during mating season and run into the fence
over and over and hurt himself and maybe others. So now he has this condition called
cryptorchidism, supposedly not painful, just not pretty. He seemed okay when I wandered by, maybe just
not happy that I didn’t have any food for him.
Near to him were a couple of emus (also not happy I didn’t
have food for them) and then the ostriches. What crazy birds. One was by the gate and was definitely
checking out whether I had anything for him.
A sign stated that you could feed them, if you were brave enough. The ostrich took a pretty big crap, then the
other one walked over and the two of them proceeded to eat it! Okay, glad I didn’t have any pellets and
tried hand feeding them.
Emus:
An ostrich:
Eating "lunch"...
Probably the most exotic animal that I’m not sure if I’d
seen before was the Valais blacknose sheep native to Switzerland. They were funny looking guys, in a cute
way. Raised for both their meat and
their wool, they looked like they could have been from a Star Wars movie. Supposedly they have a very mild and friendly
disposition and that is what I experienced.
The Valais blacknose sheep:
The secret garden:
Strange lunch buddies:
Very cool farm and I have to admit I left with a smile.
I travelled further up the Coromandel Peninsula, somewhat
off of the beaten path. I passed through
the small town of Coromandel on the west coast of the peninsula and then headed
back over towards the east side, only some 20-30 kilometres away but it was a twisty,
turny gravel road up and down a small mountain range. For a while I probably averaged 30 km/h. Arriving on the other side I found a freedom
camping spot called Little Bay. It was
an unpaved parking lot with a small building with long drop toilets. There were the familiar “camp between these
arrows” signs but surprisingly I was the only campervan there. The rest of the vehicles (only a half dozen
of them) were locals who were either on the beach or out on a boat.
I parked and checked out the beach and it was lovely, a nice
little bay, sandy, some islands out in the near distance and a nice little
sailboat anchored just offshore.
Grabbing my camping chair, I wandered down to the far end and wrote a
few postcards. The sky transitioned to
an orange tinge…the Australian smoke was back.
By 4:30 it was too dark for my sunglasses, and remember, it’s summer
here so the sun doesn’t set until almost 9 pm.
The eerie sky:
Returning to my van, I grabbed my guitar and sat on a picnic
table to practise a bit. A Kiwi named
Paul from Gisborne who was on holiday came over and we chatted a bit. He had a cool little dog ironically named
“Tank”. A few other campervans showed up
including a couple of young Danish guys in their rented campervan who were on
day 2 of a 2 month trip. Cool to see the
excitement of those just starting their journeys. It was a peaceful evening.
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