Bush and Beach

So, given that we were well short of sleep it seemed like we would sleep forever.  Unfortunately our body clocks still hadn't adjusted and by 5am we were wide awake,  so I headed down to the harbour and caught the sunrise over Viaduct Harbour.  I took a walk round and I was soon in amongst the fishing boats of the harbour.  Like the UK this year, the day after boxing day is a holiday so things were pretty quite first thing in Auckland.

Dawn on the Streets

Harbour Bridge

Dawn across Viaduct Harbour

After breakfast we decided that sight seeing around the town didn't hold much appeal, so we booked a day on the "Bush and Beach" tour.  We were the only people on the trip - with John our guide who is a "resting" actor,  having had a role in many big films....none of which you have ever seen.

First stop was the Arataki centre, which gave us views across the various parts of Auckland and the surrounding rainforest. Then it was into the bush for a fairly warm walk up to the Kitekite falls. These huge falls crash down through the rain forest and wre once used to quickly transport the logs that foresters had felled in the depths of the rainforest.  Only trouble was that it was such a violent drop that it turned the massive thousand year old trees into matchsticks, which was far from ideal and the scheme was abandoned.

Kitekite falls - look carefully and you can see the people at the bottom for scale

After that it was onto the beach at Piha, which features black sand.  Now in the UK black sand is not that uncommon,  it simply means that an oil tanker has run aground in the last few years.  But here it means that a volcano has exploded and the beach has been created from titanium deposits ejected from a volcano. This means that you can pick up the sand with a magnet - which is pretty cool.  This was all in front of the modest beach hut of the Finn brothers from the popular beat combo "Crowded House".

Sand with a magnetic appeal

Then  it was a walk up and down the cliffs at Karekare which was kind of similar to walk the coast path in Cornwall but with more cicadas. 

O look, there's a boat down there

Maori carving

Finally we did a walk through the ancient rain forest under the giant Kauri trees.  This really was like walking through Jurassic Park and I wouldn't have been surprised if a diplodocus had poked its head round one of the trees.

Kauri tree

Its a jungle out there

Then it was back to base,  some light snackage and off to bed for some well earned sleep.

NZ wins the award for the worlds most attractive dog poo bins