Hot Water Beach or bust!

Thursday 10th. Our plan for today is to go to Hot Water Beach. The beach is so named because of the underground springs which filter up through the sand between the high and low water tidal reaches. What you do is take a spade, dig a hole and then sit in the hot waters. But first, a walk on the other side of the bay. 

We parked in the centre of town and then took the ferry across the river to Ferry Landing. 

We then walked along to Flaxmill Cove. 

As you can see, the tide was going out. We had a good old paddle and then decided that the cafe over the road looked quite interesting. It was called Eggscentric! 

When we walked in we saw that they had a dish of fish in cream sauce with either salad or chips. Well, it would have been rude not to have tried it. And we're we glad we did. It was fresh Gurnard crumbed and rolled in kelp and cooked with a cream sauce. Brigid's salad had leaves, peanuts, beetroot, peppers, cucumber, peas, olives, scrambled egg, feta cheese and onion. After that we walked along the beach back to the ferry. 

Some of the rocks were quite fascinating. 

The layers were there to view even on the ground. 

We even had some black sand. 

And then back to the ferry. 

We then watched a local fisherman land his catch. 

That's a lot of fish and chips! 

Oh, and look at the library. 

We then went back to base and decided that we had done enough and seen enough for one day and that we couldn't see everything in New Zealand in this one visit. After all, we may need an excuse to come back again to visit the places missed this time round. Who knows!