Mercury Bay

Today we headed out of Auckland after an overnight stop over from the Bay of Islands. First stop was Mt Eden which is an extinct volcano and provides 360˚ views of Auckland City.

Following this we headed through native NZ forest to reach the beautiful Cathedral Cove so called because of the Cathedral shaped archway on the beach. We spent a couple of hours chilling on the beach and checking out the volcanic formations. The sea was bloody freezing though so we didn’t make it into the water which is a shame as there were some caves just off-shore that would have been cool to check out. After our stop here we headed to Hot Water beach which has a thermal outlet where the water is pushed up through the sand by the volcanic magma underground, the water is literally too hot to stand in alone so it’s best mixed with a bit of sea water.

That evening we arrived at our hostel which provided us with a good home cooked meal, a few beers and a showing of the legendary Anchor Man, classic stuff!