The night before, a few people left to camp on a beach somewhere, while seven of us decided to stay and make dinner and watch a movie. We made these dumpling/perogy/ravioli things which were pretty good and for dessert we made a giant cookie cake complete with chocolate and vanilla icing. Delicious! That evening we watched "Into the Wild." Next day, sadly it was raining, we loaded in the van and headed for the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula. Beautiful drive. As we turned into Thames we became part of the K2 Bike race which was neat.
Finally made it to the coast after about two hours of wicked windy roads through the hills. Cathedral Cove was our first stop. The place is full of large cliffs and tall islands right off the coast. We also were able to walk through the famous archway.
Once we reached the other side we decided to go bouldering around to the other cove (Secret Beach). It took about 30 minutes of climbing which was cool, especially with the waves crashing up around the surrounding rocks. Got to Secret Beach, ate lunch, then headed back because the weather wasn't too nice.
Hopped back in the van and drove to one of our field leader's homes to pick up her mail. Ate some of her asparagus from her garden and headed towards Hot Water Beach. On the way we stumbled upon a cute little fruit winery.
We went inside and had a free wine tasting. We tried Fejioa wine, Manuka Honey wine, Loquat Wine, and so many others. They guy was also very entertaining during the wine tasting, cracking jokes the entire time. He spoke really fast too so you could tell he was a professional at giving this speech. Great afternoon really.
After the winery we headed to Hot Water Beach. Crazy! There is a spot on the beach where the water percolates down to hot rocks and then comes back to the surface like a natural spring. The water was seriously hot! Everyone there was digging pools into the sand like personal hot tubs. We didn't have too much time so we decided to just dig our feet in. Occasionally our feet were buring. It was so cool.
Then we headed home down the windy roads again. The next morning we left for Leigh and Poor Knights...next post.
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