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Hello folks,
We’re very much settled in Auckland now. The day-to-day annoyances of working (we need the cash) and commuting (Auckland public transport is by far the worst in the Western world - don't get me started!) have started to become a bit wearing, however the evenings and weekends are still great fun and we have now seen a fair bit of this northern corner of NZ. What I’m still amazed about is how easy it is to get out of this huge city, and in a matter of an hour get away from the crowds, be in a wilderness and stumble across spectacular scenery.
The beach at Piha is a good example. We (Tom, Liz & flatmate Merridith) picked up a cheap hire car on the Friday straight after work and then drove out west past the suburbs and into this crazy hilly wilderness. The only way I can explain the forests of NZ is that they are weird and prehistoric, at any moment I was expecting dinosaurs to leap out in front of the car! Anyway within less than an hour we had arrived at the little seaside village of Piha. We pitched our two tents in the
dark so we had to wait until morning to check it out. Merridith had one of those cool round pop-up tents which can be put up with the minimum of effort, unfortunately it did not hold up that well in the wind and rain that night! The weather got so bad that the cute campsite cat got between the inner and outer part of our tent and then fell asleep on my feet all night.
Well it was worth the pain to survive to the next day, as anyone who knows NZ, the weather changed in an instant and went from freezing cold and wet to blue sky and boiling sun. Ah the beach was stunning, such a beautiful chilled-out place. The summer houses of Piha village emerge out of the thick forest and nestle on the slopes of a steep valley, at it’s feet is a long wide (black) sandy beach with stunning granite headland cliffs. At the centre of the beech, between the two headlands is Lion Rock, a bit like a minnie Arthur’s Seat in that you can tramp up and breathe in the incredible views. I suppose like many bits of landscape in NZ, Lion
Rock is really inportant/sacred to Maoris so near the top this is marked by quite an impressive carved statue. Oh and I forgot to tell you about the waves, they are seriously strong. The huge waves come all the way from Australia and hit the beach at loads of different angles, great for the plucky surfers but way too dangerous for swimming. Even with a small army of lifeguards, the three of us only had the guts to paddle and splash about a bit. Great fun though jumping the waves and we nearly got dragged away a couple of times.
Anyways we didn’t do very much in Piha because there’s very little to do there other than relax, sunbathe and take in the view. There’s one shop in the village and it only sells tinned stuff so we had to drive back to the edge of Auckland to get supermarket supplies. Caught a bit of road rage on the way back - aren’t NZ drivers supposed to be a chilled-out bunch? Then ate and lay about in the sunshine for the rest of the day. That night we got friendly with a big bunch of backpackers and sat round
a fire playing drinking games, including a guy from Overton (a village outside Winchester where Liz’s Mum is going to live). What a small world it is! The next day we collapsed our tents in the driving rain and drove happily back in the fogged-up car.
To finish off the weekend the sun came out and we went along to the Auckland Food & Wine Festival. It was great, you paid $15 entrance fee then we went round all these stalls hovering up as much yummy food as we could and sloshing it down with glasses of wine. To top it off a sweaty Elvis Presley in a white jumpsuit was on stage gyrating his hips and singing his hits to a merry crowd. To prove that the main man was still alive and well, at the end of his set Liz and Merridith posed with him in a funny photo - classic, Elvis has a cheeky grin and you can see the sunburn lines on his fat, sweaty, hairy chest!
There’s plenty more I could write about but I think I’ve blabbed on long enough. Do I need to talk about the Waiheke Island Jazz festival at
Easter other than we had fun ‘making’ Caz’s birthday photos, tapping our feet to the tunes, enjoying the summer sun and an amazing sunset, and polishing off a couple of bottles of delicious local rose? Expect a separate sailing blog shortly as Liz in particular has done a fair bit recently and there’s some pretty cool photos to go with it.
For now - adios amigos….
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Liz
non-member comment
Am i meant to comment on my own blog?
Tom, thats not a round pop-up tent, its an umbrella..