Sitting in puddles on Hot Water Beach

We are now starting our journey south and our first stop is the Coromandel Peninsula. We stop for lunch in a small town called Taura and having checked low tide times we head to Hot Water Beach. Now here is the background to why we are going to Hot Water Beach. Some volcanoes develop huge underground water reservoirs of superheated water. Over time this water will make its way to the surface cooling on the way but arriving at the surface the temperature can be 64 degrees C and at a rate of 15 litres per minute. At Hot Water Beach there are 2 fissures where this water reaches the surface. So that's the technical stuff out of the way....this is how it works...

now the reason for knowing low tide times is that you have to arrive at the beach one hour before the low tide time. You hire a spade and make your way onto the beach, you join lots of other people on a small area of beach where they are all digging little holes, putting their toes in to see if the water that is appearing is warm. Now we stand in the gently breaking waves feeling for hot spots, get talking to an English couple and decide the hot spot we are standing on should be where we dig. So the boys start to dig as the tide is retreating and create a little pool. Meanwhile the beach is filling up with lots of people doing the same thing and its quite crowded!! After a while our puddle is quite deep and we sit in it and chat to our "new friends". Now our pool isn't as hot as some others as you can see the steam rising from theirs. But ours does have 2 hot spots within in and give our pool a nice supply of hot water to sit around in. It is all quite mad but quite fun!!!