Day 6

Day 6
Woke up to the full moon setting over Shelly Beach. The Coromandel Peninsula is absolutely beautiful. We checked out Coromandel town and bought ourselves some smoked products including mussels that North Island seems to be famous for (they sell them fresh in every supermarket!). Not huge fans but we will try some other varieties as we go along...
After leaving the town we headed up to a stunning lookout which gave us ocean views in both directions. Next stop Cathedral Cove where after having a picnic lunch (the mussels) we headed off on the walk to Cathedral Cove – the natural arch formed in the sandstone. Absolutely beautiful walk and amazing beach when we got there. Paradise.
Kids had a play and a swim there and then walked back UP the hill to get back in the van and drove to Hot Water Beach. It should be called Extremely HOT Water Beach. The water is so hot you can barely stand it! That is only in certain places after people have dug a hole with a shovel (too hot to use your hands). Once you have found a good hot spot and dug a hole and mixed it with the right amount of sea water you can sit and enjoy the warmth for a while until the waves come crashing in and ruin your lovely hole! It was well worth it 
After the hot dip we drove on to our park for the night Top 10 Waihi Beach Resort. Very flash caravan park. They have eels swimming throughout the resort in a stream! We will be checking it out thoroughly in the morning as when we arrived the full moon was rising again...