“All we’re missing is a body to bury,” my companion Molly giggled as she paused on the night-chilled sand and kicked off her sandals, shifting her spade from one shoulder to the other.
She was right–we did look conspicuous, trudging along the beach with shovels and backpacks at 10 o’clock on a Saturday night in late December with only the full moon, surf and some shadowy rock formations to guide us. But there was nothing illicit about our intentions. We were headed to the Coromandel Peninsula’s Hot Water Beach, famous for its natural hot springs that tickle the surface at low tide.
After a few minutes, we began to see the silhouettes of people digging. To the unaware, it would have looked like fools building sand castles in the dark. Huge walls of wet sand clumped everywhere, creating a clutter enhanced by towering cliffs and an isolated rock formation. But the people were digging sand pools around hot springs, with temperatures consistently hovering between 140 and 147.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
The beach, we had heard, is the crown jewel of the North Island’s breathtaking shores. During the first two weeks of our visit, Molly and I already had explored much of the country’s popular Northland region, including Ninety Mile Beach, an endless stretch of white sand and surf that leads to Cape Reinga, the northwesternmost point of the country. There the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea collide in a violent spray of whitecaps, a place that the native Maori say is the jumping-off point for souls. No spot in New Zealand is more than 70 miles from the ocean, and even metropolitan Auckland’s municipal beaches trump many of those on the U.S. eastern seaboard with their naturally sculpted beauty and isolation. So, gripped by a sense of “What can top this?” we headed up the Coromandel to see for ourselves.
At Hot Water Beach, a notice tacked to an understated Department of Conservation kiosk advised digging hot pools beginning two hours before low tide. A local newspaper indicated that low tide that night would be 11:30 p.m. Except for the unusually high number of cars in the parking lot at such a late hour, nothing else indicated anything special about our location.
Molly stuck her toe in an abandoned pool. “Yikes! That’s no hot spring,” she announced.
“Do we just dig until we hit the hot water or what?” I asked. She shrugged. I stuck my spade into the soft sand, unaware that for the uninitiated, the muscle-soothing hot water usually is the well-earned reward for hard work.
We first had heard about Hot Water Beach and the nearby resort town of Whitianga while staying in a backpacker hostel in the much-hyped thermal city of Rotorua, about five hours to the south. Even though I had lived in Auckland 10 years before, I had heard little of the Coromandel region and nothing about Hot Water Beach. I was a bit skeptical, but we had intentionally structured our six-week itinerary to encourage spur-of-the-moment detours, so we decided to check it out.
We also were curious how such a phenomenon could avoid exploitation by entrepreneurs who would undoubtedly subdivide the beach and sell time shares if it existed in the United States. And I could not understand why anyone would want to sit in a steaming hot pool during the middle of the day in a country where the sunburn time is measured in single-digit minutes and broadcast hourly as part of the weather report. Not until Molly reminded me that there are two low tides per day did I begin to understand the potential appeal.
Molly and I had driven thousands of miles together in the United States without getting carsick, but neither of us had ever encountered anything remotely like Highway 25. The road snakes up Cook’s Coast on the Coromandel from the Bay of Plenty. It is one of the steepest and most winding roads in the Southern Hemisphere, checkered with sheer drops and little white crosses memorializing the sites of fatal accidents. Even hitchhikers–who populate the rest of New Zealand’s roads during the summer months–were nowhere to be seen. By the end of our five-hour drive from Rotorua, Molly was as green as the lush vegetation lining the road.
Hot Water Beach is about 21 miles south of Whitianga on a barely-there gravel road off of Highway 25 (tar-sealed roads in New Zealand are a big deal). Two gravel parking lots nestled among the red pohutukawa trees and a few homes. A path leads to the beach and a five-minute walk to the rocks that mark the springs. In the absence of a full moon, a flashlight is a good idea.
“This water is still cold,” I grumbled. I was standing knee-deep in a pit I had spent a half hour digging, grateful for the spades because we would have fought a losing battle without them. Around us, happy couples snuggled in their pools, occasionally digging out silt with cupped hands. “Try digging closer to the water,” a sand-caked teenager suggested.
I moved closer to the surf and nearly screamed as I stepped directly on a hot spring. The sensation was similar to pouring hot water over very cold toes, and I yanked my foot away. “I found one!” I cried out to Molly.
Despite the blisters forming on our hands and the knowledge that our shoulders would ache the next day, we began digging with gusto. Soon we were battling “creepers”–the occasional surf that reaches much farther up the beach than its predecessors. Every time we would make some progress, cold ocean water would flood the pool.
Eventually, the surf retreated, and we built a wall of sand that was big enough to keep the creepers from infiltrating our soak. We shed our clothes and stepped in, kneeling first into the delicious warmth, then laying back to study the Southern Cross and an unfamiliar sky. The water was shallow, but the temperature had a regulating effect, keeping exposed body parts warm. The trick, we discovered, was to avoid sitting directly on a hot spring, which was too hot when it bubbled against our recently sunburned bodies.
“This is my best Saturday night date ever,” Molly said. I agreed. You only get a few perfect moments in life. Sitting naked under a starry, moonlit midnight sky three days before Christmas in a steaming hot pool of my own creation with the surf crashing just 2 feet away will always be one of mine. Molly just sighed contently and burrowed deeper into the sand.
The experience was so serene that we almost did not notice the tide coming back in. Suddenly, the creepers were back, eroding the two-foot high wall of sand we laboriously had constructed. We grudgingly got out of our pool and dashed to the ocean to wash the sand out of our bodies and sleep out of our bones. It was well after midnight, and Highway 25’s twists, turns and sheep beckoned.
Vowing to return the next night, when the tide went out an hour later, we dressed and headed back to the car. Molly turned around for a last glance. “It’s like another planet,” she marvelled. The steam clouded the beach as the sea reclaimed the sand, the surf ricocheting across the horizon like gunshots. “No,” I said. “This is heaven.”
Molly and I awoke the next morning in twin hostel beds, stiff from digging but happy to our cores. We shook sand off our bodies and scrounged up breakfast to enjoy on the patio of the Coromandel Backpackers Lodge, less than 350 feet from crescent-shaped Mercury Bay. Though not yet 9 a.m., the sun shone brilliantly.
Around us, visitors from Germany, Japan and Australia were making plans for the day. Like us, they planned to use Whitianga as a base from which to indulge in some of the most uniquely spectacular beaches in the world. Besides Hot Water Beach’s wonders, Molly wanted to walk on the pink sand of Hahei Beach and sunbathe at Cook’s Beach, an exquisite stretch of sand where Captain James Cook first claimed New Zealand for the British in 1769.
Nearby wineries and huge sea caves, known as Cathedral Cove, were as majestic as Hot Water Beach was magical. To the south were the surfer paradises of Whangamata and Waihi. On the west coast of the peninsula were the gold rush towns of Coromandel and Thames, where artisans and craftspeople have forged a bohemian utopia. Dozens of other bays lay to the north in Colville, many of them deserted and only reachable after a good hike. Some of these beaches are so far off the beaten track (and once you get outside of the cities, virtually everything in New Zealand is on the main drag) that many car rental companies prohibit renters from driving north of Highway 25.
After two weeks in the bustling tourist traps of Rotorua, Auckland and Northland’s Bay of Islands, Molly and I finally felt we were seeing a New Zealand usually reserved for the locals. This is truly a haven for beachcombers and sun worshipers, impressive even by Kiwi standards.
And yet, Whitianga had everything we needed for a comfortable stay. Like most New Zealand towns it is small. There were a handful of petrol stations, a one-room library open only two hours a week, three or four grocery markets, a couple of cafes and a community center that doubled as the cinema on the weekends. No building in town was more than three stories high.
The people were abundantly friendly. I nearly fainted when I pulled in to the petrol station and the attendant offered to check my oil and water while he cheerfully pumped my gas. When we washed two weeks’ worth of dirty clothes at a hole-in-the-wall self-service laundry, the proprietor folded our clean underwear while we lunched at Snapper Jack’s, the best fish-and-chips joint in New Zealand. Back at the hostel, which was more like an apartment than the dormitory-style budget facilities typical of Europe, the owners happily lent kayaks for sea paddling, boogie boards for body surfing and spades for Hot Water Beach.
In the afternoon, we took the three-minute pedestrian ferry to Flaxmill Bay and hiked to the top of Whitianga Rock, the site of an ancient Maori pa, or fort. Thousands of pas are located throughout New Zealand, most of them long-since abandoned by the well-assimilated natives. But this one was particularly strategic because it provided a 360-degree view of the only waterway into the anchorage. I learned of its historical significance during a conversation with the hostel owner, but at the summit there was little evidence that a thriving society once had lived there. There was a grassy clearing that looked like it was once the village center and steps that had been chiseled into a boulder at the top. Otherwise we were left to ponder how a community would have functioned on the steep terrain.
Back in Flaxmill Bay, Molly was adding to her rapidly growing shell collection. The area is the scallop capital of New Zealand, and the shells wash up on the beach in a rainbow of oranges and purples. At the top of Shakespeare Cliff, so named because it resembles the Bard, a trail led to Cook’s, Hahie and Hot Water Beaches, turning what otherwise would be a 21-mile drive into a 4-mile hike; the hostel also loaned bicycles to guests who were willing to take the pedestrian ferry over and pedal to the beaches, but the ferry stops running at 9 p.m., making a late-night soak at Hot Water Beach an unrealistic option for those without an automobile. We walked for a while, enjoying multicolored hydrangea, indigenous silver ferns and other, less familiar foliage. It was 5 p.m. before we knew it, and the sun was still high in the sky. Nonetheless, we had to turn back.
“You know, if we were in D.C. right now we’d be commuting home, through snow, in the dark,” I said. Molly laughed.
“Yeah,” she said. “Why don’t we go dig a hole in the sand instead?”
DETAILS ON NEW ZEALAND AND ITS COROMANDEL PENINSULA
Getting there: From Chicago, passengers must change planes in Los Angeles. From L.A., United Airlines (800-241-6522), Qantas Airways (800-227-4500) and Air New Zealand (800-262-1234) have non-stop flights to Auckland. The lowest current quote for flights in August is $1,279. Tickets are about $400 more from November through April (New Zealand’s summer).
In Auckland, rent a car to get to Whitianga (about 150 miles, over tough roads). Local companies charge about half the price of international companies, but make sure you rent from a member of the Vehicle Rental Lender’s Association. We were happy with Scotties Rentals (011-64-9-630-2625), which provided a late-model Corolla for $32 (all prices U.S.) a day (cheaper in the winter) including unlimited kilometers, GST (Goods and Services Tax) and mandatory insurance. Bookings are essential, especially during the New Zealand summer.
If you don’t want to drive to the peninsula, Air Coromandel (011-64-7-866-4016) offers daily service from Auckland. InterCity bus line (011-64-9-357-8400) also has daily service from Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga.
Where to stay: In Whitianga, budget travelers should consider the Coromandel Backpackers Lodge (011-64-7-866-5380), a spectacular example of New Zealand’s marvelous independent hostel network. We shared a double for $24. Be sure to book in advance if you plan to be there during school holidays (mid-December to mid-January). There are other accommodation options, including the Hay-Lyn Park Lodge (011-64-7-866-3888), which has rooms for $60 and is only 15 minutes from Hot Water Beach. For more moderately priced accommodation, try the Homestead Park Resort (011-64-7-866-5595) at Flaxmill Beach, Ferry Landing.
Where to eat: A visit to Whitianga is not complete without getting fresh fish and chips at Snapper Jack’s Restaurant and Takeaways on the corner of Monk and Albert Streets.
Excursions: Nearby Coromandel is a preserved 19th Century gold rush town now populated by craftspeople and potters. The information center (011-64-7-866-5555) has plenty of information. Near Cook’s Beach on Purangi Road is the Purangi Winery (011-64-7-866-3724), one of New Zealand’s finest and open to the public. Colville is the last town on the sealed road to the north. It is a good jumping-off point for remote beaches and tough walks. Opoutere Beach, off of Highway 25 to the south, has a nesting ground for rare sea birds and an ancient Maori pa site.
Information: Contact New Zealand Tourism Board, 501 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 300, Santa Monica, Calif. 90401; 800-388-5494. The Web site address is http://www.nztb.govt.nz
