Whangamatā - Mount Paku - Hot Water Beach

In Whangamatā, I of course visited the 4km long Ocean Beach, which was voted the best beach in the country in 2018. Although only by the readers of the New Zealand Herald, but that doesn’t matter. Afterwards, I visited the two-tiered, 50m high Wentworth Falls nearby and saw one of the famous shoe cleaning stations at the park entrance for the first time. On the Coromandel Peninsula, where the Wentworth Falls are located, there are also Kauri trees, which are threatened by Kauri root rot. Before visiting areas with Kauri trees, you must remove any dirt on your shoes with a brush and then disinfect the shoes as well.

The next destination was Mount Paku. This is a volcano that can be accessed via a land bridge from the mainland and together with the mainland forms a lagoon. There is a beautiful view of the towns of Tairua and Pauanui, some islands, and of course the lagoon.

After all the effort, I arrived at Hot Water Beach just in time, two hours before low tide, and relaxed there not in the cold Pacific, but in a hot stream pool. At least as far as I could, as there were still incredibly many other people there. But for that, I didn’t have to dig a hole myself, but could simply join others in their pool.

The next morning, I drove to Hot Water Beach again for the sunrise. Since it was high tide, I was almost alone, which I liked much better than in the afternoon before.