It was another glorious day - we have been blessed with delicious sunshiney goodness - and the Coromandel region was really very, very beautiful. Like New Zealand in general.
This reminded me of a conversation we had with Alex before she left for the UK
Alex: "Yeah and then you go somewhere else and you see another stunning vista of gorgeous scenery and you're like, 'yawn, more stunningly beautiful mountains? Another pristine beach? Boring boring boring.'"
Us: "Really?" :-0 :-0 :-0
Alex: "Nah I'm only kidding. It's amazing. All the time."
Anyway. coromandel was amazing. All the time.
The water was pretty warm and the day was shaping up to be a hot one, so we thought it best to get int he water as soon as possible.
After everything Robert said about 'always having beach holidays as a child' and 'happy not to do beach things since I'm so used to it', there was no keeping him away from the water.
To get to Cathedral Cove, you have to pass underneath a cave (the 'cathedral' itself) and past a rocky outcrop where the waves crash on coming in - a very wet journey if mistimed!
Robert grabs his things in readiness:
And this is what happens when you don't time it quite right...
Being too preoccupied with keeping my Canon out of the way, this is what happened to my shorts on that crossing:
Poor, faithful shorts!
This picture also serves as an obituary, for these shorts, which have accompanied me to Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Cuba, the USA, Spain (three times), and, ill-advisedly, India (where I only wore them once, and was so ashamed at my ankle-displaying antics I never wore them again), are now No More. These Shorts have Ceased To Be.
Sob!
While playing in the surf in Cathedral Cove (which turned into a slightly frightening rip-current exercise in not drowning), a large wave must have come up and taken them away from me.
RIP shorts!
I had to be no-shorts Connie for the rest of the day. Luckily this was not a problem for me (is it ever a problem?) as we mainly stayed in the sea for the rest of the day. Phew!
I love Mexico.
We spent the rest of the day skimboarding, eating ice cream, and generally having a good time on the beach. Skimboarding, it turned out, is fairly easy (in a way. In a way it is also impossible) on Hahei beach - a flat beach with plenty of water coverage - and we skidded about and looked generally foolish. It's not as much fun as surfing, but definitely a good addition to my current list of Stupid Things Connie Can Do On a Board.
This is Robert about to throw the skimboard down and skim on it.
He wasn't very good (mock.)
The key thing with boards, I have realised, is just to Go For It. If you try and look dignified, you'll never make it. The key is to break through the Embarrassment Barrier without breaking your wrist.
The sand was alive with tiny sand critters.
Can you see it?
They were brilliantly camouflaged!
I promise you it is there.
Robert, despite my exhortations to put sunscreen on for God's sake you idiot, insisted on not putting any sunscreen on and instead taking away a lovely memory of his sandal imprinted on his foot, as below.
He also decided to change the skin on his shoulders twice, for the hell of it.
He put some sunscreen on after that
Connie is always right, folks.
When you're a pasty white-ass person from the Northern Hemisphere, I suggest you slather sunscreen on like there is no tomorrow. Even if you're a big ethnic, I'd suggest you do the same. That ozone over NZ isn't going to repair itself*** you know.
Amen.
*** strictly speaking untrue, however geological time does not apply to my calculations
As well as sand critters, there were a number of hopeful looking seabirds hovering about waiting for our fish and chip lunch
These are the tracks they left behind...
After all that waiting, Hot Water Beach turned out to be a bit of a let down. The surf was so violent that day (Hahei beach, which is normally full of children, was designated a no-swimming zone after several adults got caught in the rips and had to be rescued) that even at low tide, the sweepers kept coming up and up the beach. While on Hahei, at the very top of the high water mark, we were still inundated by a silent sweeper that crept right up behind us and drowned everything we had.
That's where I lost my phone.
RIP phone and shorts!
Hot Water Beach suffered from the same problem, and after desultorily digging a few holes only to have them filled in again, we gave up and drove on our merry way to Rotorua. To finish off that day's near death escapades, Robert then promptly decided to skid for a good 4-5 skids on the wet road without putting the brakes on.
Me: (in my head) Holy shit! We're in trouble! Robert's braking for all he's worth and the car is STILL SKIDDING.
Robert: (as he told me later - in his head) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!skid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!skid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!skid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!skid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!skid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I wonder what will happen if I put the brakes on?
Car stops.
Me: "Holy shit! I can't believe it took us that long to stop when you were braking all that time."
Robert: "Actually I wasn't. I'm not sure what my right foot was doing."
Me: (in my head) WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT
Me: "Ok. Well. At least we're safe. Please press the brake next time you cannot control the car."
Robert: "Yes. I think in fact I may have been pressing the acclerator."
Me: (in my head) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH
Robert: "And I was just steering away from the skid. Which....I know you're not supposed to. But the road was really narrow and we were going really fast! But...I guess if I'd braked then that wouldn't have been a problem. But I didn't think about braking."
Me: "Sweet Jesus."
So anyway we reached Rotorua all in one piece.
In Rotorua, we visited Whakarewarewa village (it has 6 syllables, not 3 as Robert insisted on pronouncing it) which is a living village full of pleasant Maori folk showing us around and feeding us food and purveying bubbling mud
It was pretty good bubbling mud: and can cure 'everything' as far as the advertising seems to suggest.
It was a warm place, and even the cemetery had to have chimneys for venting steam, which I found quite entertaining:
The main attraction in the village was the geysers, Pohutu and the Prince of Wales' feathers, two geysers next to each other. The Prince of Wales goes off before Pohutu does - it's an 'indicator' geyser, and so named for the feathers on the Prince of Wales' crest.
I suppose there's a passing resemblance.
It was too hot a day really to be wandering around a geothermal village, with the sun beating down and the soil heating up (they have a little garden - but the plants have to be raised up on insulated beds otherwise their roots get scorched), and so we had to repair to a nearby hill for a quick ice cream and a view before going onto the Kiwi Encounter.
Now the Kiwi Encounter is a fab place, a nature park nearby Rotorua which I strongly suggest you visit had you the time and inclination. The Kiwi is, of course, New Zealand's national bird, and I do quite like that NZ has chosen for its national emblem a hugely endangered, flightless, almost blind, nocturnal, shy bird that walks like it's permanently about to fall over.
Kiwis are an oddity: they have feathers that look like fur, almost no wings, a keen sense of smell and poor eyesight; two ovaries rather than one like most birds, and are just the most endearing, perplexing, inept little round balls of wonderfulness you've ever seen. There are a few Kiwis around the world - some in San Diego zoo and some in Japan - but nowhere else. This was a pretty awesome opportunity to see some Kiwis in the flesh.
We were taken through the incubation chamber, looked at the eggs (which are MASSIVE - 0.5 kg, when the female only weighs about 3kg! She can't eat for 3 days while gestating the egg, because there is literally no room for her to eat.) After laying the egg, the female totally abandons her eggs to the male to look after; no wonder, she must have PTSD from producing such a large thing ("equivalent to a human giving birth to a 3 year old child"). And best of all was when they brought out a 2 day old chick (they happened to be moving the chicks around, and therefore brought one out for us to see) who just wanted to sleep, curled up on the staff's hand. It looked so soft! Ad then we went into the nocturnal kiwi house to see some little kiwis running about. But best of all was whne we came back at 9pm to see the actual Kiwi House open, and the 4 current residents run about in the darkness and generally look as inept and cute as you possibly could look. It was frankly magical.
Even Robert enjoyed the Kiwis, though he pretended he just wanted to eat them:
Our first night in Rotorua over, we finally went to bed at a reasonable hour, for tomorrow we had a long day ahead....
To be continued!
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