Road to Whitianga (Footy-Yanga)

Despite the pub I got up at 6:30 to catch the first leg of my bus tour. We set off at 7:30. Before leaving Auckland we drove to the top of the Mt. Eden the highest of the over 60 volcanos that the city sits on. It's a national park and cows roam free on the hillside to keep the grass trimmed. They used to keep sheep but to many people were stealing them. Just make your own jokes here, it's too easy for me to bother. The bus rolled on through Thames, Coromandel and Tairua befoe a stop in Hahei, home of the hot waves beach.
Like much of NZ it has underground thermal activity, but here it's near the shore line so people dig pits in the beach to bring heated water to the surface. The pits mix it with the incoming sea water to make it cool enough to sit in as your own spa pool. By the time we got there the tide was already moving out and ripping the pits apart so all we could do was dig our feet into the sand and feel the heat come up followed by a dip. I actually got a very minor burn on the underside of two of my toes. It would have been worse if I hadn't lept out quickly.

I signed up for Sea Kayaking so I went to that next while others were taken on a hike and then to there hostels. We took the Kayaks out on Mercury Bay to an area called Cathedral Cove in the Te Whanganui-A-Hei Marine Reserve. There were people there form several tour groups and I shared my 2 man Kayak with a guy named Dermot. Funny enough he produces childrens television in englan so we had a lot to talk about. Early on while trying to get close to our guide so he could tell us bout the area we actually managed to flip the Kayak. It was actually our guides fault cause he tugged to hard on the bow, but I had already been in the ocean at Hahei so i didn't care. I'm just glad the dry storage was as good as he said because my camera and iPod were in there. They are still working great.
We paddled around a series of amazing islands left over from a giant volcanic dome that existed several thousand years ago before landing on a secluded beach called Cathedral Cove. Our guide, Ross made us hot drinks on the beach while we checked out the view. The weather kicked up a bit on the way back so my arms were totally spent by the time we got back.

Afterward the Kayak company dropped me off at my hostel which was appropriatley named "On the Beach"
I walked in to town with some of my fellow backpackers for dinner and drinks before turning in early.

This is the view I woke up to.