Day 21. Thursday 27th November 2003
Whitianga

After a fairly leisurely start set off for Cathedral Cove. Decided to get breakfast out and stopped at a nice cafe and got a massive breakfast. It was a 45 minutes walk from the car park to Cathedral Cove itself—quite a slog after such a big breakfast—but it was worth it. Sea was blue and sand a light yellow. The hole in the cliff face was impressive and it was a nice place to sit and read for a while.

We then headed off to Hot Water Beach. Jeff hired a shovel for $4 for us to "dig our own pit". The beach was really busy for an overcast day, particularly in one spot. It seems the hot areas were in a very small area. It was a hive of activity, some had managed to dig small trenches and others were busy trying to stop the waves crashing in. We couldn't find any hot water to start with so I started walking along the water line and within moments could feel the heat under my feet. If you dug your toe in it would also burn it as the water underneath was obviously boiling hot. In fact in one place you couldn't walk on the sand and could see the water bubbling on the surface of the sand!

We decided to call it a day there and went back to town. Went to the local cinema (a tiny little place) and watched SWAT with Colin Farral. Jeff and I had it to ourselves as four foreigners got up realising they were in the wrong film, which was by-the-way rubbish.