Thames is not known for its nightlife. At least not until the night we hit the town…

I’d spotted earlier in the day that ‘Tim Anderson’ was playing a pub gig later that night – for free! So five of us guys from the hostel (two Germans, one Mexican, one Australian and a Brit) headed down to watch. (Un)fortunately for Tim, we pretty much doubled the crowd there. Our rounds included an ingenious (and slightly deadly) ginger beer made by dropping a shot of ginger wine into a pint of beer and finished strongly with Guinnesses all round.

Ahmed demonstrates the Ginger Beer Bomb

First Guinness since leaving home

The hostel’s video collection. The one on the far left says it all really

The following day Ahmed (the Australian) and I set off early to try to get to Hot Water Beach in time for the low tide. If you time it right, you can dig a hole in the sand at this beach and it fills with hot water (50 deg C) from underground. You then add a bit of sea water (cold, obviously – which dashed the hopes that I held when I first heard the words ‘Hot Water Beach’…) In the end we were slightly late but if we stood in the sea knee deep and wriggled our feet down into the sand, all of a sudden you’d feel super hot water around your feet! So I still left happy that I’d ‘seen the magic’.

We then popped round the corner to Cathedral Cove which is a pretty cool beach area with a natural arch, accessed by a gentle 45 minute hike.

Ahmed refills his water bottle

After a quick lunch (a steak and cheese pie. Paresh – you’d be proud of me!) we headed south. I dropped Ahmed off at a random river where he planned to do some fishing. In 24 hours we’d become good friends and shared a lot. The world would be a better place with more folk like Ahmed!

I continued on to Rotorua, back to the campsite we’d stayed at a few days previously as we passed through. Just in time to watch Australia destroy England in the cricket world cup (on TV).