DAYS 30-39: Piha Beach!

Days 30-38: Auckland living and class.

Day 39: We decided we needed to get out of the city (thats right, we lasted about 2 weeks... we're from Vermont, we're not used to buildings taller than the trees...)

We had heard about a beach about and hour away called "Piha". No buses ran there, so we had to rent a car. This was so weird, because in the States you can't rent a car until your 25, so this was kind of cool. Except for the part where in New Zealand, they have the wheel on the right side of the car and drive on the left side of the road. Good lord.

Anyways, so we rented the cars, spent about 10 minutes sitting in the car trying to grasp the concept that the blinkers were not the windshield wipers and you can go left on red. Weird.

We hit the road and once outside the city were on the most narrow and windy roads I've ever been on. No wonder the buses don't go here, they would never fit. Finally after driving through miles of "bush" we got to an overlook of Piha beach. We pulled over and got a couple of pictures before we made our way down to the water.

Piha beach is on the western side of the North Island. Therefore, the water that hits it is the Tasman Sea. What is also unique about Piha is its sand: it's black. Which makes sitting on it extremely hot. But we didn't spend much time lounging around, we had way too many things to explore!

As you can see in the photo, there is this big rock/mountain in the middle of the beach. Supposedly, a Maori tribe used to use it as a high point for battle. So of course, we hiked it. It gave a gorgeous view of the beach.

When we got down, we went to explored some cool caves that you can only see at low tide. We had to dodge some crabs, but we had fun looking at starfish and barnacles. My friend Lizzy Fanning, who I teach with, had told us about a short hike to a waterfall. So we piled back in the car and went in search of it.

The hike took about 40 minutes and was relatively easy. The falls, called KiteKite Falls, were huge! We were at the bottom of it and thought, we should try to climb above it! We climbed an incredibly steep hill where we were on our hands and knees to get up and played around the pools above the great fall. We were dreading the slide down when we found a very well traveled trail instead. Wow we are so smart.

Although the water was freezing, we went in the pool anyway. People looked at us like we were crazy, but we didn't care. Needless to say, we didn't stay in very long. We got some New Zealand pizza on the way home (let's just say, it's no A Crust Above...) and got ready for another week of class.