Hot sand beach and the Coromandel Peninsula

Our route today

Today we took a scenic drive in a north easterly direction toward the Coromandel Peninsula and around it, anticlockwise.

We found a hot sand beach along the way and stopped to take a look and experience the phenomenon for ourselves.  Initially I didn't want go onto the beach - it was crowded with people and I felt panicky.  In the end I'm glad I did go.  People were digging out small pools in the sand, using spades or hands, during low tide.  The hot spring water then seeped up from the ground into the makeshift pools.  Some areas of sand were warm but there were also patches that were very hot and one had to be careful not to burn one's toes.


We were going to cross to Whitianga via a ferry near Cook's Beach but discovered that it was a foot ferry so we had to backtrack to Whenuakite so that we could continue our round trip of the peninsula.

We would have liked to have headed further up north from Te Rerenga  to Fletcher Bay and back down to Cormandel but time was not on our side so we cut across the neck over to Cormandel and headed southwards along the coast back to Katikati.  During our drive we found parts of the road washed away, the result of last week's storms, and were in the process of being repaired.

It was a nice drive and a nice day.

More Pictures

Hot sand beach