"Meeting the Maoris" Andersontravel's photos around Rotorua, New Zealand

A TripAdvisorâ„¢ TripWow slideshow of a travel blog to Rotorua, New Zealand by TravelPod blogger Andersontravel titled "Meeting the Maoris" Andersontravel's travel blog entry: "One of the highlights of our road trip through the Coromandel Peninsula was our day at Cathedral Cove, an amazing beach where we soaked up the sun on the first day of 2008 in style. It was a 45-minute hike along the coast to Cathedral Cove along beautiful landscape decorated with the blooming Pohutukawa trees, better known as the "NZ Christmas trees". This is what they look like...red and green for the Christmas season! On the beach is a huge that has been worn away by water after many years to form a huge arch and walking through it we discovered a soft sand beach with beautifully clear water. We spent time reading, relaxing, and swimming alongside many other beach-goers. Having bronzed ourselves as much as we could handle, we hopped in the car heading south. We stopped at the famous Hot Water Beach hoping to catch it at the right tide time to be able to soak ourselves in the natural hot water spas! Due to volcanic thermal activity below the beach, there is always hot water below the sand and 2 hours before or after low tide you are able to dig a hole in the sand and sit in your little natural hot tub! They even rent shovels for this activity! Unfortunately we were a few hours from low tide and we were beached out so we decided to move on. Our final destination in the Coromandel Peninsula was a ...