Hot tub + beach = awesome

Last weekend we went to the small town of Kawhia (pronounced Kafia - like Mafia) about 1.5 hours south of Raglan on a gravel road. We went there with another American family that is living in Raglan for 5 months. The dad is a professor on sabbatical form the Univ. of Minnesota and an expert in fungal ecology. What is the probability of finding two U.S. microbial ecologists of the same age (with kids of the same age) in a New Zealand town of 2,000 people?.

We went to Kawhia for the annual Maori festival, but we first had to make a stop at the local hot water beach. Just another crowded NZ beach:

The three explorers (Maddie, Fritz, and Luna) go out searching for the spot where the hot water bubbles up out of the sand.

Bingo! We start digging in the sand to build a hot pool and then some other folks join as well. We are all clustered together because that is where the hot water is seeping out of the sand. If you had to design an ideal setting - this would be hard to beat: dig a hole in the sand, sit in the hot water, swim in the ocean, repeat until the tide comes up. Really awesome.

Yep - simply no fun at all.

Soon the tide came up and the pools disappeared under the ocean. We went to the festival in Kawhia to eat some lunch. The mussels were delicious and beautiful - so beautiful that Luna ate quite a few with zero hesitation. Evidently palm-sized mussels cooked in seawater are the new kid-friendly food choice.

The festival was great - super mellow in a beautiful location with some local kids doing Maori haka dances. If you've never seen the haka being performed - check out this video.

There were some people getting tattooed right next to the face painting booth, but Luna decided to settle for the face paint.