Pottering round Piha

We're getting a bit behind with our blogging here, but at the beginning of September we went to Piha for the day.
The beaches in our part of Auckland are very sheltered by the various islands and headlands, but Piha is on New Zealand's west coast and there's nothing between it and Australia to interrupt the Tasman, so it's the place to go if you're into surfing or just fancy your sea with a bit more excitement to it.  It's only 50km from home, but once out of central Auckland you're into the Waitakere Ranges, which is very hilly and makes for some interesting driving.

Piha beach is a long expanse of black sand and crashing breakers with the imposing bulk of Lion Rock, site of a former Maori fortification or pa, standing in the middle of the beach.

Seemed a shame not to climb it, so up we went.  Not all the way to the top, as it's not safe, but we got about two-thirds of the way up and were rewarded by great views over the beach.

We found some interesting sealife: as you will see, my descriptions aren't very technically accurate, so if anyone knows what they really are, please enlighten us!

A very blue jellyfish.  Dead, and not very stingy

A big tangle of shells like false nails with white wormy things sticking out

Lots of spiral shells, all bleached white and empty

That said, stunning scenery and unusual wildlife were wasted on the infants and the most interesting thing as far as Reuben and Tilly were concerned was the big heap of mud in the garden of the Piha Café where they could dig around with spades and toy bulldozers.  We'll return when the weather is warmer and they might find the beach a bit more exciting.  Or they might still find the pile of mud to be the biggest attraction.

A selection of our photos from the day are available here.