The Cosy Cottage was not very cozy. We all woke up with sore hips. We were only slightly better than when we’d slept in Lucy the previous night.
We didn’t do much. We went to the Hot Springs Beach in the city of Hot Springs Beach. People are really good at naming things here. The idea behind Hot Springs Beach is that there are hot springs under the sand, so people dig themselves holes in the sand and the hot water comes up and they sit in it, like a hot tub, and then the cold waves from the ocean wash over your hot tub and you just kind of relax there. Well, we started digging a hole, it kept collapsing in on us, and we started with a kind of already used hole that was full of cold ocean water. Well, we dug down a foot or so and then I just shoved my arms into the sand as deep as I could, got them all the way to the elbows, and found no hot water. People kept coming by asking if that was hot water we were sitting in, because there were a bunch of people but nobody else digging, maybe just to watch us fools first and see what we came up with. We’d say no, they’d be on their way, we’d be about our digging. The waves from the ocean kept washing into our hole and taking away all our progress, so we built up a wall around the hole tall enough to impede the waves. After maybe twenty minutes’ work on that hole, a big wave came and smashed our wall and flooded the hole. We were all facing the other way when it happened and it came as quite a shock. You should’ve heard Alyssa cry, I thought it was hilarious. We gave up on the hole, deciding that the hot springs were a myth and it probably came about because the first person there dug a hole for some reason, the water came in, and his body heat plus heat from the sun warmed it.
We instead decided just to play in the ocean, which was a lot of fun. I ran quite a ways out from shore and it was still shallow, up to my waist maybe, and as the waves would be coming in which were about as high as my head I’d jump into them and let them throw my lower half out from under me. I felt limber and young again. J slash k. Amanda and Alyssa took to waiting while facing away from the waves, and when the waves came, they’d leap the other way and swim, using the wave to propel them faster than most people are able to swim. Eventually, somebody found the hot springs; they were farther out on the beach and you can really only dig yourself a hot tub while the tide is out. I stuck my foot in a hot spring and felt like it was going to get burned, I probably wouldn’t have been able to sit in one. Amanda probably could, when she sets the temperature on the shower it burns my sensitive skin.
After our noses and eyes were sufficiently filled with salt water and uncomfortable, we drove away, toward the Wautomo Caves to see glowworms. The Wautomo Caves are located in a city called – wait for it – Wautomo Caves. We got there pretty late so we just found a hotel (a little pricier than usual for us, but also a little nicer). Finding a hotel was kind of an adventure. We’d first planned to stay at their holiday park in a cabin, as we typically do, but got there a scant twenty minutes after the park’s office closed. Bastards! Sorry, Tourette’s moment. We stayed in their parking lot a moment, using their lights to look through our Bible (the New Zealand Accommodation Guide we’ve been lugging everywhere for three weeks) to find someplace else that might have an open reception area. While we waited an employee of the park knocked on our window, wanting to know what we were doing there. We explained the situation, he told us all the cabins were rented anyway. At our next stop, the cheapest room available for three people was $140 for the night, but that included free breakfast. We drove out of Wautomo Caves, back to the main highway something like 10km away, and found ourselves in a more reasonable $105 room (still more than the $45ish we’ve been paying, but as stated, it was pretty nice).
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