awkward in auckland: Waitakeres, Karekare, and Piha

View from the look out at the Waitakeres

Look out view

First stop: Waitakeres!

We've been in NZ a month! Whoa!! I've been loving Auckland, but I had an urge to get somewhere this weekend where I couldn't see the Sky Tower. So I called up my friend from Songa, Steph, who lives in Auckland. She brought Lara and I around the woods of west Auckland to do a little exploring. First of, Steph took us to the Waitakeres (see above). The Waitakeres are a mountain range along the east coast of Auckland. But still, from the look out, you can see the Sky Tower.

A silver fern

Possibly a rahui, which is a Maori
"no trespassing sign"

We had a look around the visitors center at the Waitakeres and then we got back in Steph's 2 door to explore Karekare beach. To get to the actual beach, we had to walk through a river/ dune area for about ten minutes, which was nice because when we finally got to it there were not that many people there. The west coast beaches all have very fine, magnetic black sand. It is very soft to walk on when it is on the ground, but once it is windborn, it cuts your legs like a pricker bush. It was so beautiful, seeing the ocean and the waves and the rocks (and the kiwi surfers were pretty nice to look at, too). It was surreal how different the landscape was in comparison to the ever-rolling hills of suburbs that is "Auckland super city".

Karekare beach

Songa at Karekare

Outcrops at Karekare

So artsy right there, espec. with my hand blocking the "lense"

Waterfall at Karekare

Waterfull at Karekare

View above Piha

After the Karekare waterfall, we climbed back into the car, and Steph braved more winding roads to bring us to Piha beach. We had lunch at a flash cafe (this means cool in NZish). Flash also means expensive, but it was good food for a great view. Piha is a more popular beach, probably because the actual beach is easier to get to. Piha had the same type of large, black rock outcrops in the ocean, but it also had high beach cliffs made up of what looked almost like glacial till ? There were rocks of all shapes and sizes cemented together. I'm going to have to investigate that one...