The Beach? In December? You Betcha.

So, I know it's been a while since my last post. Give me a break, I was really busy doing... yeah I've got nothing. Actually the last couple of weeks have been quite exciting. I have visited some more places around Auckland whilst searching for a job.

Update: I have found a job. I started in the middle of last week. It's not what I had hoped for, but it is gainful employment and I am grateful to have it.

A couple of weeks ago the Ely's and I went out to Piha Beach. It is a west coast beach. We are much closer to the east cost, and some of the beaches in the harbor, but the west cost beaches, in my opinion are much prettier, and have massive waves. To get to the east coast from here, you have to cross the Waitakere (why-tak-a-re) mountain range. So the last half of the trip is fairly step downhill. And like everywhere else the road is as straight as spaghetti. Despite crossing a mountain range and driving across the nation to another coast, Since we are on an isthmus, from the Ely's house to the beach was only about a 25 minute drive. At this part of the north island, one could easily go from east coast to west coast in 45 minutes or so.

A few kilometers from the beach, there is an overlook that looks down on the beach. Although you are very close you are still way above the beach, it makes for some amazing photos. The beach is long, with a big rock plopped right in the middle of it. It's really quite breathtaking. Once on the beach, perhaps the most noticeable feature is the sand. It's black. The sand on many of the west cost beaches, at least along this region, are black because it is volcanic sand. It is also extremely fine.

We spent a few hours there, walking on the beach, enjoying the sites before we headed back.

Last week, I wanted to go to the beach again, so I headed out to Bethells. It is a west coast beach, just north of Piha, but a bit more remote. Bethells has a huge sea of dunes behind it. The dunes are being preserved, and so parking is behind the dunes. This makes for a very long walk to the beach once parked, my guess is about half a mile or so. But the walk is well worth it. The beach is very long and extremely broad. It is black sand like Piha, but the sand here, when the sun hits it just right is almost purple. The beach itself is really broad, and slopes gradually, so when waves come in they come way up onto the beach. Since the beach is so gradually sloped, when the waves come in, they hang on the the beach, taking their time going back out. This, coupled with the black sand below turns the entire length of the beach into a long mirror.

To the south, the beach stretches off to cliffs in the distance. To the north, similar to Piha, there is a huge rock that forms a small bay with some gigantic waves with massive currents. I waded into the water, only to about knee deep to take pictures of the waves crashing on the rocks, and the current nearly took me off my feet.

While I was on the beach there was a film crew there as well. I don't know what they were filming. A local told me that this is a very popular beach for filming. It's easy to see why. With the length and breadth of the beach, its sheer beauty, and its isolation due to the sea of dunes; if I was filming a beach scene, I would do it here.

On my way out I ate at a small cafe behind the dunes. There were no open tables, so I sat with a couple, originally from Holland. They have lived in New Zealand for 45 years, so they were very articulate in letting me know that despite their heritage they consider themselves Kiwis. They were so very interesting. At this couples advice I ordered a burger. They said that the burgers at this place were really good, and they weren't kidding. This bit may be hard to take in for Texans, but I might have to say that the best burger I have ever had was at Bethells beach in New Zealand.

The beach was so beautiful that I took the Ely's back with me the next day. We played baseball on the beach. When we got bored with that, we played Bachi ball (I hope I am spelling that right). I had never even heard of Bachi ball, but the Elys had a set, so we played it. While we were playing some Korean guys walked up and asked if they could play, so we paired off into teams and played. It was really a lot of fun. I know I say this a lot, but this place is absolutely amazing. Each place you go is seemingly more beautiful and grandiose than the one before.