Coromandel
"Digging a hot pool in the sand with our hands while the ocean crashed ten metres away — New Zealand at its most absurd."
The Coromandel Peninsula is the North Island’s wild eastern edge — a spine of forested mountains dropping to beaches that range from golden to white to volcanic black. We drove the winding coast road from Thames and arrived at Cathedral Cove, where a natural rock arch frames a beach of white sand and blue water that has appeared on every New Zealand tourism campaign for good reason. The walk through coastal forest to reach it made the reveal more dramatic.
Hot Water Beach delivered on its unlikely promise — at low tide, we dug holes in the sand and hot water seeped up from geothermal springs beneath the beach, creating personal hot pools while the Pacific Ocean crashed metres away. The experience is absurd and wonderful. New Chums Beach, accessible only by a thirty-minute walk and a river crossing, was voted one of the world’s top wilderness beaches and deserved the title. We saw nobody for two hours. The Coromandel town itself was small, artsy, and supplied us with mussel fritters the size of our fists.
When to go: December through March for warm swimming, Hot Water Beach at its best, and long days. Check tide times for Hot Water Beach — it only works two hours either side of low tide. Summer weekends are busy at Cathedral Cove — go midweek or early. Autumn is beautiful and quieter.