Coromandel

After the Tongariro Crossing, we continued past Lake Taupo to the impressive Huka Falls. These flow down at a rate of 200,000 liters per second, which could fill 4 Olympic swimming pools each time. The power that the flowing water brought with it in the river gorge was incredible.

To continue taking advantage of the good weather the next day, we set off early in the morning to Coromandel, a peninsula southeast of Auckland. Unfortunately, the sky had already become overcast on the way, so we arrived at our first stop, Hot Water Beach, accompanied by showers. Hot Water Beach is a beach where there is a 170°C hot stone under it, heated by volcanic activity, which heats up the water under the beach. And when we say heated, that means that in some places you cannot sit without getting burned. However, to dig your own pool, you need a shovel, which you can rent on site. Since we arrived there late in the afternoon, we decided to forgo the rental fee and found a pool that had already been dug. Due to the cloudy, cool, and partly rainy weather, it was very pleasant to relax in the warm, free pool. However, our feet were unbearably hot in the pool, so we preferred to let our legs drift in the water rather than placing them on the scorching sand. After a good hour, we set off again, heading to Cathedral Cave, a filming location for 'The Chronicles of Narnia'.
Due to the cyclone that devastated New Zealand, access to Cathedral Cave was closed. When we walked the 45-minute path to the lookout platform, we were caught in a few showers again and were disappointed when we couldn't even see Cathedral Cave from there. So we reluctantly made our way back and were already considering just crossing the barrier down to Cathedral Cave. When we arrived there, people were already coming towards us from behind the barrier and assured us that the path was passable. So we finally went down the path to the beach, and apart from the staircase leading down to the beach, the path was really easy to walk. However, we still had a slightly uneasy feeling even though more and more people were coming down to the beach. Therefore, we didn't stay too long to avoid pushing our "illegal" entry any further.
Since the path had taken quite some time and it was starting to get dark, we only drove down to our campsite instead of visiting the west coast of Coromandel, as originally planned.