Road Trip! First Stop: Hot Water Beach

 Marie from France, Me from Cali,

Sabrina from Germany, and Roelinda from the Netherlands.

I met some lovely ladies from around the world through Couchsurf.org. We all got together in Auckland and decided to go on a road trip together around the North and South islands of New Zealand. Together we can speak 5 different languages... and hear all sorts of conversations people don't think we'll understand, which is awesome!

Before we leave Auckland... let's take a look at a few more great street performers.

Good vibes! Spreading music and happiness all over the world.

 

 Jucy Campervan!

There's no hiding this bad boy.

Our Living Room.

...and bedroom, car seat, and dining room.

With 4 ladies living in this camper,

I wonder how long it's going to look like this.

 The back of the van.

We come fully equipped with fridge, kitchen, stove,

2 beds with duvets, sink, tv with dvd player, and lawn chairs.

On our first day we drove toward the Coromandel Peninsula. On our first night we found a spot to camp that was literally a pullout on the side of a mountain pass road. It was late and we were tired so it worked. The next day, Marie installed the Rankers app on her iPhone that shows us all of the free campspots in NZ. The first one we found was literally right on the waterfront.

 

Here we are eating at the dinner table!

I'm the campervan chef, and they do all the dishes and cleanup, cheers!

Here's the sunset on our beachfront property :P

Yeah, wow.

We stayed out on the park bench until the moon came out in the sky.

Super cute kitty was following me around everywhere I went.

Waking up in the morning,

nothing like hot tea on a windy beach morning to wake you up!

When we woke up we drove to Hot Water Beach, there is a natural hot spring that bubbles up right into the sand on the waterfront. If you dig a hole in the sand, you have your own natural hot tub right on the beach!


One side of the beach looks like this...


and the other looks like this!
Plenty of pre-dug free hot tubs to choose from.


We took over a hole and made it comfy.


Marie was taking the pics for us. It started sprinkling while we were there.
There's nothing as nice as a hot tub in the rain :)

Great start to a great adventure!