Cathedral Cove Kayak Tours – Day 10

We are going to Cathedral Cove this time we are going by kayak. Which is something I’ve always wanted to do since the first week I was in New Zealand.

So we get to Hahei Beach and the kayaks are line up on the beach ready for us to go. We meet our guide for the day, Haydon. Haydon does a quick safety briefing and how to steer the kayak. So Haydon was like: “Hey, everyone is looking awesome bro. Everybody’s looking awesome.” And then then he walks toward Laura and he’s like: “You’re looking awesome Laura, just give me this, hold it completely the other way and you’re going to look awesome.”

We go inside the kayak, get the paddles and off we go. The Cathedral Cove Kayak basically starts in Hahei which is a very small village about 10-minute drive from Hot Water Beach and about 20-minutes kayak from Cathedral Cove. Now we took about an hour and half to arrive to Cathedral Cove because we were just going through all the rock formations, went around a few islands.

The first place we’re going to is Motueka Island, which is apparently the shape of a nose because a Maori chief named this island after his own nose.

There’s a few different seabirds around the area as well, which is quite cool to see. And the rock formations are really cool. Oh hello, look! It’s right there!

Every 10 minutes or so we all stopped and got our kayaks together while Haydon tells us a story of Maori legends and the history, both geological history and the Maori history of this significant coastline of the Coromandel.

We also got to go through a few caves which was really cool. I mean, I never been through a cave while kayaking before. It was quite impressive because you still have the wave.

Both been there before on separate occasions and stuff but this is quite cool to land at Cathedral Cove and get a new perspective from the ocean. It’s like a different perspective to what you would usually get.

Haydon just helped us one by one told us when to paddle, told us when to stop paddling and told us when to paddle backwards and then told us when to panic but eventually, yes, we did get onto the beach.

Cathedral Cove is a beautiful beach from the movie Narnia. Have you seen Narnia? If you didn’t, well, you should because there’s Cathedral Cove in it.

We have half an hour to check out the beach, check out the Cathedral Cove and all its caves, take a few photos, avoid the tourists. it is actually so much quieter in winter time than in summer.

Haydon asks us: “Oh, what do you guys want to drink? Do you want coffee? Do you want hot chocolate? We got moccaccino, cappuccino, frappuccino, lalalino?” And we’re like: “Er, Ok.” I’m just expecting a Thermos of coffee here. After about 15 minutes, he’s like: “Come on in guys!” He has like the this whole purple blanket laid down in front of us while he’s pouring his freshly frothed milk and he’s got a whole barista style coffee shop going on here. I have to say it was absolutely delicious. I felt like royalty sat on Cathedral Cove Beach sipping my moccaccino I went for.

Awesome.

Now before we start paddling our way back to Hahei, he’s just taking a small detour to take us inside a cave. The White Cliff Cave had a mini beach itself. Haydon gets out of the kayak and just like pulls us all together. then he’s like telling the local Maori and geography stories of this cave while its all echoing around us in this tiny little cave. Yeah, quite cool – quite the novelty.

It’s time to make our way back to Hahei Beach, which is, you know, by this time we are experts at kayaking so we are just like cruising around while, you know, I’m cruising along a Robin is not like doing anything.

We are blaring some like really moronic dubstep music. It is the only way of keeping us warm until we get back to Hot Water Beach where we can take a hot water shower. Now, do you remember a couple of days ago when we were in Hot Water Beach and I was digging like a monkey and Laura was mocking me so much? Well, it’s payback time. You going to be paddling and I’m behind and you don’t now if I’m paddling or not so I’m going on a vacation. Basically, this sea kayaking tour is about me paddling and Robin just sitting back and relaxing.