On Saturday 4 June, I collected 2 Koreans from their apartment in the central city and we went to two of Auckland’s beautiful west coast beaches. We departed at 10am and arrived at Piha Beach after a 45 minute drive, much of it through the Scenic Drive in the Waitakere Mountain Range. It was a beautiful early winter day with a temperature about 17 degrees but it felt much warmer in the sun.
Piha and Karekare – $65 per person, full day tour.
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Destination: Piha and Karekare
We stopped first at Piha Lookout, a great photo stop, before heading down the road to the beach and walking up the steep, narrow track to Tasman Lookout, which offers breath-taking views to the north over both South Piha and North Piha as well as views to the Gap area to the south.
From Tasman Lookout, we walked south along Tasman Lookout Track, stopping for a while at a point overlooking both the Keyhole and the Gap, before going down the track to the small beach area at the Gap.
The Gap is appropriately named as it is a gap in the sea cliffs where the sea crashes in, often in spectacular fashion. At one time I had to warn the girls to move forward quickly as I was taking a photo of them, which they did, and they narrowly avoided getting drenched by a wave.
Our next stop was at the Keyhole, once again suitably named as it is a hole cut straight through the cliff face by wave action and erosion.
Next we returned to the car and drove to Karekare Beach. This is usually a 10 minute drive but at the moment there are road works and it is necessary to take a detour so the drive is about 30 minutes. We wandered around Karekare Beach for a while enjoying the outgoing tide and the reflections it leaves on the beach.
After recent storms, Karekare Stream is wider than it was in summer and as there was no wind, we took photos of the surrounding mountains reflecting in the stream.
The sun was getting lower in the sky so we had a quick visit to Karekare Falls, before driving back to Piha where we were just in time for sunset.
We stayed until after sunset and left Piha at 6.15pm. I dropped the passengers off at the city apartment at 7pm after a thoroughly enjoyable day.
