The New Year!

Though Christmas Day was basically the same set-up as at home, boxing day certainly wasn't. We headed to 'Hot water beach', which is essentially a beach with hot springs under the sand. A couple of hours either side of low-tide, you can dig yourself a hot-tub and lay in it! It wasn't the best day but the water certainly made up for it, by the time we left the water in the pools was unbearably hot!

The next day we headed to supposedly one of the top 10 beaches in the world 'New Chum Beach'. It was a 20 minute walk from the car park so that meant it wasn't very busy, we found a nice spot under a blossoming Pohutukawa tree and after a bit of sunbathing went in the sea. It was an amazing beach but I think part of the reason it was rated so highly was because of the surf. 

On the 28th we left Matarangi and the Coromandel to head back down to some of Holly's relatives just outside Auckland for New year. Since Karen and Martin (Holly's relatives) were off work over the Christmas period they took us to some of the nicer places around the city. First they took us to Devonport, to the top of Mt Victoria, where we got a view of the whole bay overlooking Auckland. The next day they took us to a remote beach about half an hour down a gravel road that there is no way we would have found by ourselves. Though it was so remote, it was quite busy and the waves were huge, Martin taught me how to body

surf on them, though I did get completely wiped out many a time! 

For New years eve/day we drove back up Mt Victoria and watched the Auckland fireworks from afar because we had been told trying to get into the city would be a nightmare. We arrived at the top at 11pm and it was already chaos up there so its a good job we weren't any later! It was a bit chilly but we got a great view of the fireworks, unfortunately no pictures came out very well though.