Hot Water Beach
Truth be told... New Zealand's pretty amazing. Not just in the nice people, the fun accent, the obsessive number of time saving and efficient round abouts (pronounced [aboots] for Canadian sake), but in the nature! I suppose that may not come as a surprise. I'd say the vast majority of people that know something about New Zealand know that it has stunningly beautiful scenery. I was among those people before stepping foot on NZ soil. I still am. However, from being here and actually experiencing the nature first hand, I've learned that it really, truly and entirely is amazing! And not just in the "wow" factor category. It has unreal and unbelievable secrets. These secrets, you can experience them!! It's not just history and stories, it's touchable, smellable - experiential! This pure realization occured the other day as Luke and I opted to do as our Lonely Planet book told us to and check out the "Hot Water Beach" on the Coromandel Peninsula. So far we have had the pleasure of experiencing the geothermal activity all across the North Island in the form of natural hot creeks and rivers, natural boiling mud puddles and the absolutely rank sulphuric stench of Rotorua. Each of these activities definitely created an "oh wow" reaction. But the Hot Water Beach, it was different! Perhaps it is because I have been here long enough to feel a small, burrowing sense of pride and knowledge about New Zealand. Or perhaps it is because on a rainy, chilly, grey afternoon, I was able to sit in a small pool of water, dug into the sand, directly touching the incoming ocean waves, and feel so hot that my skin turned red and a few times I literally yelped in pain!!!
How is that possible? How, I ask, how can there be so much heat directly below the oceanic sand that when your burrow your toes into it, they becoming scaldingly hot and you yank them away? Then, one moment later, a massive ocean wave comes crashing in over the sand... leaving the sand above freezing cold, but 10cms below, boiling hot. How!?
As you may have guessed, science was never my strong passion. Otherwise I would have researched and learned what the scientific reasons are. Obviously there are logical reasons for these natural occurrences having to do with awesome volcanic activity. But I prefer to look at it from a different level. If you take out the logical science pieces of it and think solely on the basis of human ideas of what is and what isn't... isn't it just a little bit mind boggling? A little bit, amazing, perhaps? I was flabbergasted, in a wonderful way! New Zealand... keep on being awesome, because clearly you're good at it!!
How is that possible? How, I ask, how can there be so much heat directly below the oceanic sand that when your burrow your toes into it, they becoming scaldingly hot and you yank them away? Then, one moment later, a massive ocean wave comes crashing in over the sand... leaving the sand above freezing cold, but 10cms below, boiling hot. How!?
As you may have guessed, science was never my strong passion. Otherwise I would have researched and learned what the scientific reasons are. Obviously there are logical reasons for these natural occurrences having to do with awesome volcanic activity. But I prefer to look at it from a different level. If you take out the logical science pieces of it and think solely on the basis of human ideas of what is and what isn't... isn't it just a little bit mind boggling? A little bit, amazing, perhaps? I was flabbergasted, in a wonderful way! New Zealand... keep on being awesome, because clearly you're good at it!!
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