We got picked up on Saturday with the kiwi experience coach and the evening saw us chilling on a beach called hot water springs. Named so as you can dig your feet into the sand at a certain points on the beach and feel the heat of the geothermal activity below it. And yes it can definitely burn you!

The idea was to dig a hole which would contain all this steaming water then let a little ice cold sea water wash in from the waves to balance out the temperature. Unfortunately this sounds a lot easier than it actually was! As we were on the beach for ages and a little eager we decided to try and start earlier than advised. Armed with our trusty shovels and a lot of enthusiasm / blind determination we dug our holes battling off the ever pressing waves that would make our efforts feel futile as we dug a glorious, warm circle only for it to be decimated by the waves a minute or so later. It really was a great team effort though.

Eventually we made some hot pools and chilled for about five minutes. Well worth the three hours of hard graft!

(Unfortunately I wasn't taking photos so have no cover photo for this post but this is a good reminder to take some more snappy snaps!)