Well the Netflix didn’t work last night, bit of a shame.

Up at 7ish for an 8 o’clock get away, which we would have made had I not decided to french plait my hair!

Grabbed a couple of breakfast muffins from the hotel and we set out into the morning drizzle and traffic. Luckily both didn’t last too long.

Drove through a variety of countryside including the plains around the Firth of Thames and the southern edge of the Coromandel Forest. Arrived at Hot Water Beach around 11, perfect timing for the tides and hired our spade for the dig. Failed with our first attempt of finding hot water but when we did it was unbearably hot! There was even steam coming off the water. The beach itself was huge but the sea so rough no swimming allowed.

Drove further up the coast to Hahei Beach which looked just like a beach from paradise. We walked the whole length of it before Dave had a swing in a tree and I got wiped out by the waves! Unfortunately the water taxi wasn’t running so we weren’t able to get to Cathedral Cove.

Drove onto our accommodation for the night, a cute timber lodge in Pauanui. As we were a little earlier than planned, we stuck another wash on and when finished drove to the town centre to check out the facilities. We found the 2 restaurants shut, the supermarket was closing in 5 mins and the takeaway stayed open for another hour until 7. We made a quick decision to preorder some fish chips for closing time and then drove down to the front for a quick walk along the beach. It was lovely, on one side you had the Tairua River and on the other the South Pacific Ocean – fabulous.

Bang on time we collected dinner and ate it on our veranda.

It didn’t look like anyone else was staying here apart from a few workmen, so we made use of the hot tub with an evening drink (luckily we had bought some beers and whiskey earlier in the week)

Total driving today 245km (125 miles)