HOT WATER BEACH

Another Vacation from Vacation! 

 Well it was yet another great/fantastic/amazing weekend in New Zealand! This weekend started Thursday right after school! We were picked up from school and left for the weekend (It was a pretty funny sight to see us with our bags packed standing in front of school waiting to be picked up). Anyway, we got picked up, and we left for Hot Water Beach. Now I’m going to be honest with you, I had no idea what we were really doing this weekend. I didn’t know what it was or anything about it, but it turned out to be so much fun!

           We got there late Thursday night, and we got to the houses we were staying in. Supposedly I got the “Flash House.” It was a pretty sweet house. It had a big dining room, a big kitchen, two bathrooms, a big family room and two other rooms. Not only that, but the majority of the house was windows! It was pretty flash! And they had sky tv! Yeah it was super flash! Anyway, I got to stay in the flash house with Neeley, Nicole, Emily, Katie, Rebecca, Kara, and Allison! It was a great housing situation! Not only that, but we literally were across the street from the beach. Yes, we could walk across the road, and be at the beach! It was fantastic!

        So that night we wanted to do something, but didn’t know what to do, because first is was dark when we got there, and we wanted to get up early. So we sat in our house and tried to decide what to do, but while we were deciding, we had left the door open. Let me tell you a little secret; Lights on, with doors open, in the middle of the dark night, in the middle of the forest not the best idea (this will come to play in a little). As we decided what to do, we decided it wasn’t safe to go out by ourselves the first night late at night, so we would stay in and watch a movie. As the movie came to a close we decided we’d pack it in for the night and head to bed, well you see as we were getting ready for bed we decided to lock all of the doors….well we soon noticed we had a cricket infestation! Not only crickets, but heaps of bugs! THEY WERE EVERYWHERE! I felt like I was in California Adventures sitting in it’s a bugs life, where the bugs attack! They were everywhere! Our night adventure turned into eight girls screaming, and getting bug spray to kill the bugs, trying to smash them with shoes, and trying to get rid of the bugs. Note to self, be smarter next time. Then as we went to bed, we could here clicking, and none of us could sleep. Neeley and I slept very close to the middle of the bed! We weren’t risking any chance of crickets climbing in our bed!

                Anyway, the next morning we woke up and had a great cereal breakfast! I think this is the first time since January that I have slept in past like seven thirty, and not only that but had a lazyish morning. We woke up ate our cereal while we watched the Disney station! This was so great! Not only that, but we were in our pajamas doing this! I haven’t done that in the longest time! Anyhow, after  we had eaten our breakfast, Neeley, Emily, Nicole, Katie, Rebecca, and I decided to walk across to the beach (It was only like nine.) We walked over to the beach, and it was so pretty! I really am lacking in adjectives to describe the views I am seeing over here. Anyway, we sat on the beach for about ten minutes until Emily said, “You know these would be perfect waves to teach you to surf on.” As soon as she said this, we were looking for a surf board. GUESS WHAT!!!! WE FOUND ONE!!! I GOT TO LEARN TO SURF!

          Anyway, we walked up to the little beach shack and we found a good board that we could rent, and then out we went! We spent the next probably four or five hours surfing and learning to surf! It was so much fun! I must say I think surfing is one of the new best things ever! First of all, it’s really hard (but I’m getting better, by the time I get home I will be pro.) Second of all, it is so relaxing just laying out on a surf board waiting for the waves to come in. Then third of all it’s such a rush trying to swim fast enough and let the wave catch you, then trying to stand up! It was so great! I’m definitely taking this up as a hobby…but it might be a little bit difficult seeing how Utah doesn’t have a beach. It will be a hobby one day though!

          After we had surfed, it was almost low tide (I just wanted to tell you I have learnt so much about tides over here.) Anyway low tide is really important at hot water beach. Two hours before low tide, and two hours after low tide, you can dig down on this beach and have boiling hot water! Then you can dig your own little Hot Tub! It was so cool! There is some volcanic rock, or magma or something like that that is below the surface of the beach that is very old. So water goes down and is heated by this rock, and then comes back up to cool down. It was truly incredible. I don’t know of anywhere else you can do this.

 Anyway, I’m going to tell you a little bit about digging. First you have to get there before low tide, and stake out your position. You can’t just show up and dig, you have to be there standing. So as the tide goes out, you have to dig your fit a wee bit in the sand, and if you feel hot water, then you will be on a hot water place. But once you’ve found your spot you have to stand there. Now when you are standing in sand and the tide is coming in on your feet. You sink down. Then once you have sunk down, you realize your feet are burning up and how hot the water actually is. This makes it really funny, because everyone is jumping up and dancing like they are on hot coals! We really all looked funny! No less in front of us, we all have shovels. It really was pretty funny!

                Anyway, once the tide was lower than where we had selected, we got to start digging! We dug so much! I felt like I was with Stanley Yelnats at Camp Green Lake! Not only that, but it looked like it too! There were heaps of holes being dug all over the place! Anyway once we got the hole dug, the hot water was right there and we had our own little hot tub! Now I know you are thinking, “If it was so hot that you couldn’t even stand in it, while cold water was coming up, how can you sit in it?” This is where you need a bucket! We didn’t have a bucket, thank goodness someone let us borrow theirs! Once you get the hot water, you have to get buckets of cold ocean water to cool it down! I have never seen or done anything like this before! Once our hole was dug, we just enjoyed our nice little hot tub on the beach!

            We stayed in our hot tube for a couple of hours just relaxing, then decided to head up for lunch! We walked back to the house, and made ham and cheese sandwich! Then we decided we wanted to spend more time at the beach! We walked across the street (Stopping at the little shack to get a Magnum bar. Mmmm, so good!) Then we went and laid on the mat for the rest of the evening. We also had boogie boards there, and we took turns with the boogie board. It was really a relaxing fun day!

                After we decided we had had enough, we went home and got ready for the night. This was rather interesting though. You see although this flash house had two bathrooms, we could only use so much water. They have to truck the water in to Hot Water Beach, so when you shower you have to turn on and off the shower! It was rather funny! You had to use the water sparingly! It was hilarious to hear all of our stories! Anyway, once we were ready, we made a spaghetti dinner, with garlic bread, salad, and watermelon! It was yummy! After dinner, we sat out on our deck for a little while, and played some social games. We played the triangle of death. This is where you all write down two things on a piece of paper. You then split up in to teams and put the papers in a bowl. Then you have to get your team to guess the word on the paper you draw out. You want to get as many as you can in the time limit. The first round you can say whatever you want, the second round you can only say one word, and the third round you have to use charades! I must say my team pretty much was amazing! Then we played the couch game! This game you all try write down your name, then you put them in a bowl. You then draw out a name, so everyone has a name from the group, but it’s a different name from their own.  You are on teams, and then you try and get four of your team members on the couch. It really was a lot of fun! We didn’t quite finish this one though, because we wanted to go out for a little midnight hike.

        Well k we didn’t just decide to go on a hike Natalie, one of the people who drove us there, told us we should go with her so we did. We were going to see glow worms! Now a night hike is kind of normal back home. Well here, there are no street lights period. Also there was not light at all! It was pitch black, the moon wasn’t shining (well it was, but it was super duper cloudy) and there were no stars out either! We literally couldn’t see three feet in front of us! This made it really scary! Don’t worry though we used the buddy system! Christine, Anna, and I were buddies, and we made sure no one fell or got injured.  Then on top of the fact we couldn’t see anything, we didn’t exactly know where we were going, and we were in the middle of a tropical rain forest! Yes this was absolutely hilarious to see the ten girls who went all scared and not knowing where to go! After all this though, it was well worth it! I got to see glow worms! They were so fascinating! They looked like little stars in the trees! I think this is one of the most amazing creations in the world! It was really spectacular! It made me so excited for the glowworm caves where I get to go rafting through them! We saw heaps of glow worms!

                Anyway, the trial that we took landed on the beach! So from there, we just sat down on the beach, laid on the beach, went in the water some, and also just ran/walked along the beach and night! It was so much fun! I truly am turning in to one of those people where the beach is their favorite place! It was such a fun day! 

                After that we went back to our house, and watched 500 days of summer. It was a really good movie! I liked it a lot. It might be one of my new favorites! Then it was extremely late, and we decided then it was time to head to bed! It was such a fun eventful day! 

The next morning we got up and left around nine o clock. We were on our way to Cathedral Cove. Now Cathedral cove is another gorgeous beach, but also where they filmed the lion the Witch and the Wardrobe! I feel like everywhere I go, there is something magical that was filmed there or took place there!  Anyway, we had all expected this incredible beach, but I’m going to be honest and say we were in for a huge adventure!

        You see it was a VERY rainy day here, but do you think this stopped us from going? Of course not! Rain or shine we are going to see the things we want to see, and do the things we want to do! So we took off Cathedral Cove. We all decided if we are going to be getting wet anyway, why not let it rain a little too. This made it very funny because I’m going to let you in on a little secret, no one was prepared for rain in the least bit. No one really had a warm coat or anything, so while we were there, we were all using our towels to keep dry, and to keep warm! This was so funny! (Don’t worry, I was in a yellow shirt and had a yellow towel. I was just trying to be the sun when the sun wasn’t shining, it didn’t work though.) Anyway, regardless of the rain it was absolutely breathtaking. It was a magical view! 

 Well we get to Cathedral Cove, but first you have to hike to get there. Guess what! Once again, Nancy was hiking in flip flops. But I will say one thing, I was one up on most girls. My flip flops had a strap on the back of my heel to keep them on, and the other girls were in just normal cheap flip flops. So I had at least a little bit of help! Now that you know what I was wearing for my feet, you have to realize once again it’s a rainy day. I don’t know if you have ever been hiking in the rain or not, but this means it is REALLY muddy! It was pretty much like we had a whole sole made of mud on the bottom of our flip flops. This made for great fun sliding around and hiking up and down! Haha!

Anyway, we got to the bottom, and it was really pretty. It was a really fun hike! Then Katie, Heidi, Anna and I decided to go a little farther and travel on these rocks in the ocean to get a better view! This was rather funny too! Picture this in your mind, four girls in flip flops crossing big rocks in the rain wearing flip flops covered in mud. Yes, this probably wasn’t the best idea of ours, or the safest idea, but we had an adventure and it was well worth it! It was a great memory!

 After we had hiked the rocks back to the bay, we stayed there for a little while and enjoyed it! Then once we got to cold, we moved on. We hiked back up, yes it was still very muddy and very slippery, but it was fun! Once we got to the top no one wanted to get in the cars because we were covered in mud. We didn’t know what to do. We thought we would look for a little spout to clean off, but of course they wouldn’t have that, this is still along the place where they have to truck in the water. So this is where the great rain came in! All sixteen of us were standing in the road, trying to find puddles of rain to clean us off. Any little stream that was flowing down the road, we were using to try and get the mud of our legs and our shoes! Seriously this was one of the funniest things ever! I wish we would have had a picture of this. Too bad we were all too muddy and didn’t want that on our camera. I just want to let you know though, we were successful and ended up pretty clean!

We left Cathedral Cove and headed back to Henderson. We drove for a long time, and then stopped for lunch in a little town. We ate at this really cute café. I had a chips (and by chips I mean fries), a meat pie, and an apple turnover! It was very scrumptious! We loaded in the cars after lunch, I was riding with Jim and Linda, Neeley, and Rebecca. We were starting our train of cars out, when Jim rolled down his window! Then all of a sudden we hear a crack, creak, bang. Don’t worry his window fell down, and then he started rolling it up and it rolled up not on track how it did. The widow was way out side, and all messed up! It was so funny! Then James tried to come over and fix it, and we got it up a little bit. Then we got scared, because we didn’t want it to break! So then he said well we might just have to have it down the rest of the way! I don’t know if you are recalling this, but it is a VERY rainy day, ha ha so don’t worry the whole way home we were getting wet! It was so funny! Then about half way through we put a towel up in front of us, so we wouldn’t get as wet, but I must say, it just added to the adventures of the day today! It was hilarious! Everyone in the car was laughing so hard, and the look on Jim’s face was priceless! He had no idea what to do! Even Linda was laughing! Anyway, we drove back to Henderson and came home and we made it successfully and safe (also Jim got a new car when he came back into town)! It was a very fun weekend!  I love the vacation from vacation! I had a lot of fun things happen this weekend, and so many adventures we went on, and great memories made!