Cathedral Cove

Where the sun and wave worshippers come to worship.
The Coromandel has beautiful coastal scenery and the beaches that Catriona dragged us to were all quirky and interesting. This, the first beach of the day, involved a 45 minute hike through the bush and was dominated by arches and huge sandstone sea stacks. The waves were crashing in and provided fun for those brave enough to venture past the shore line. Catriona and I did brave the water and had two heart stopping moments, the first when Catriona dropped her Go Pro in about a metre of water, the second when a fin was seen and the water emptied in an instant. Both had happy outcomes though, and we were soon back videoing ourselves splashing in the waves.
The last beach of the day was "Hot Water Beach" and was just beside our parking space which was just as well as we carried 4 spades to the beach. Digging down in to the sand you reach (very) hot water which, with careful mixing with sea water, makes an interesting, personalised, fragile, spa pool. With an eye on the incoming tide, and another on the shifting sand walls that we built it was almost possible to forget the several hundred other people we shared our experience with and the fact that it was difficult to regulate the temperature of the water as it oscillated between freezing and boiling. Another new experience for us to add to our collection of Natural Spas Around the World.
Before we left the beach, we had another New Zealand water sport experience. A swimmer, neither a native nor a strong swimmer, got in to trouble about 50 metres off shore. He was carried along the shore by the rip and was at risk of being swept on to some impressive volcanic rocks but luckily was assisted to safety by some of the other swimmers at the beach. As we joined the other onlookers, we were informed that a tourist had drowned at this beach two weeks ago and it was easy to see why. 
It was dark by the time we arrived back at our luxury hotel suite in Pauanui Beach, partly because we had had a full day after a late start, partly because dinner was served very slowly. Luckily the food was excellent (Pan fried Snapper on a rocket salad and Sea Food Tagliatelle.)