On Boxing Day afternoon, the weather turned nice and sunny. We'd finally managed to get through to our families on the phone in the morning, and drove out to Cathedral Cove in the afternoon. Cathedral Cove is a pleasant, picturesque beach, with a large cathedral-like gap in a rock, through which you have to walk to reach the beach. It was a 20 minute walk from the car park, with good views, and we enjoyed a splash about in the cold cold sea.
Then it was off to Hot Water Beach, a big attraction of the area. This is a beach under which are thermal springs. If you dig a hole in the beach an hour either side of low tide you can get a nice hot bath! We'd borrowed a spade from the hostel and got there in good time.
It didn't start well when I was stung on the foot by a wasp as we arrived. I hopped around angrily for a bit, and paddled in the sea to ease the pain. People had already dug some holes, so we found a spot and got digging.
All the water we found was cold. Hmmm. We kept digging. A little girl came up to us and offered us advice. Eventually, she started digging with us (presumably frustrated by our efforts). Anne went off to see if other people's pools were hot. The little girl started telling me what to do and ordering me about. Then another little girl came into our hole and began discussing digging method with the first girl. "Is he your dad?" the second girl asked? "NO", I wanted to say. "Are you stupid? I'm 29. She's 8. For me to be her dad I'd have had to have fathered her at...er...21." Oh dear. It was quite a reasonable question (other than the fact that girl number one was Indian).
Anne arrived back to see the day care centre I'd started, and laughed and laughed.
Girl number two turned out to be a nasty piece of work, and began destroying the sides of our hole. Cow. Rather than discipline her, Anne and I ran away and started another hole. We soon gave up, realising all the places with hot water underneath them had been taken long before. Oh well.
That evening we watched some TV. New Zealand TV is shockingly bad, and it was no exception over Christmas. We were chuffed, however, to be able to watch the UK Christmas Top of the Pops. It was good to see. I was, however, horrified, to see that Shane Richie has been in the charts with a cover of Wham's "I'm Your Man". I think Britain needs Anne and me back!
The worst service ever!
We drove down to Tairua the next day and found the hostel we'd booked a room in - Tairua Beach Villa Backpackers. We were only staying one night, and when Anne booked (ages ago) the lady said they don't usually take bookings for just one night at Christmas, a busy time of the year. Usually? Did that mean it was negotiable? Did she want bribing?? In the end she took our booking all the same, after Anne did her tele-sales trick of "just keep talking".
When we checked in, the woman serving us took a piece of paper from the desk, screwed it up an threw it in the bin. "There goes plan B", she said, "We were hoping you wouldn't turn up." Charming! Unlike some hostels, this one hadn't taken a credit card number to hold the room, so I suppose we could easily have not turned up without charge, however we like to think our word is our bond, so if we'd wanted to cancel we'd have rung in advance. Apparently we were inconveniencing them. Anne later said she felt like leaving, but that would have been what they wanted, so we stayed. Ha!
We later saw the woman showing some Japanese girls around, and telling them sternly that they were to stir their rice and they mustn't burn her pots. The poor girls were baffled, wondering what they'd done wrong.
As it was, for the most part the hostel was very nice. Good grounds and view. We spent the day relaxing in the sun in the garden. The mattress in our room, however, was THE WORST MATTRESS IN THE WORLD, and Anne had a bad back for the whole of the next day.
Stephen on the telly
For Christmas, our friends Ian and Sarah sent us their wedding video (along with a biro for me!) This was the wedding I flew home for in August. The hostel in Tairua had a VCR, so we put it on. There were some technical problem at first, but by the time of the speeches the picture had settled down, so Anne was able to see Ian's groom speech, and Craig's and my best men speech. The video was understandably amateur affair, but the high quality of the speeches means it gets five stars!