#CatheralCoveAndTheSilverShovels

We woke up early so that everyone could get ready and get to the kayaking on time. A few of us were either too poor or too lazy (or both as my case would be) to partake in kayaking, so we were going on a walk instead to Cathedral Cove.
We had a scenic drive with a stop or two at some lookout points. It looked just like the island does in Moana so I resisted the urge to sing “How far I’ll go” as I didn’t think people would be prepared for the magnificence of my voice before 10am!

We took some much needed selfies on a rock and then moved on to find the beach. We headed off down a cliff and ended up in what I thought was Cathedral Cove. It was a rocky beach the size of a living room submerged in water.
I pretended to be enthusiastic about the slightly disappointing pile of rubble and took some pictures anyway.

We then headed back and found a beach that I thought was a bit more impressive than the cove, and I wondered why this one wasn’t the famous destination. I turned a corner and suddenly it all

made a bit more sense. The Cove was stunning. The cave walls framed the beautiful blue sea perfectly as waves crashed against the walls.

We waded into the water to cool off a bit then joined everyone else on the main beach. We had commandeered a fallen tree branch to use as a bench for soaking up the views. Before long, we had to head back to pick up the kayakers. Enya and Marc had apparently won for team GB although no one else was aware it was a competition, so we were very proud of them!

Next Ollie took us to a hot water beach and took out some shovels. I thought maybe he had had enough of us all already and was planning on killing us off one by one and burying us in the hot pools, but it turns out it’s just to dig yourself a little hot tub hole! (We all made sure Enya didn't get hold of any shovels!)

I started to dig into the sand and after about 30 seconds pretended that my arms hurt so that someone else would do it instead.
While the men dug the hole, a few of us girls decided to run into the ocean. It was bloody freezing! Enya joined us fully dressed and then was taken down by a wave very suddenly. We were grateful for the hot water sand bath to warm us up!

In the evening we went to a little pub for a drink. There was a giant stag on the wall that we decided would look good on the front of the Haka van on sale for 2000 “bucks!” Await laughter! Explain joke to Naomi and then wait 5 minutes for the penny to drop!

We also met our new members from Egypt that were joining us for the rest of the trip who were both lovely. We spent most of the night exchanging terrible jokes and then explaining the terrible jokes to Naomi who was confused about each one of them! To be fair to her, they were pretty dreadful jokes! On our way up to our rooms, we all stopped off to check out the stars! We all pretended to spot various star combinations (well, I pretended, they probably have an education beyond that of a 7 year old) and then tucked ourselves up in bed, ready for another earlyish start the next day.