The cities in New Zealand are not what we are accustomed to back home; here it is not just possible, but actually pretty easy to find green areas on your doorstep in even the most built up areas.
Auckland is a prime example of this, but even though it gave us much more parks and natural places than we expected to see, it is still at the end of the day, well... just a city.
The story changes quickly though as soon as you head outside the city, and the further you drive from the greys of the high rise buildings and the hustle of the busy streets, the more dramatic these changes become. Before you’ve even realised what’s happening, you’re suddenly surrounded by fascinating landscapes of green and blue, immense mountains and long twisty roads that look as if they lead into another world... there are no other words, it’s simply astounding.
Our first ‘proper’ trip started with a half-hour drive west from the city, to a natural reserve called WAITAKERE RANGES. It’s an area of natural beauty, once covered with huge Kauri trees that would tower like giants over anything around, but with a little help from 19th century logging and now also a fungal disease that has developed recently, most of them are sadly just a memory. Of course, there are still some to be seen dotted around in remote locations, but like the others, they too are at risk from dying. For this reason most of the forested areas in the ranges are temporarily closed to the public, so if you get the chance to see any of the Kauri while you are in the area, do it... it’s impressive, and something we definitely would recommend.
Of the many great places within Waitakere Ranges, one of them is Piha Beach. A black-sand, picture perfect hotspot well known for being a surfing paradise. This was our first stop of the day and we arrived at somewhere around 11am - empty! Almost nobody around on such a beautiful day. How did we get so lucky? Anyway, we followed our intuition after looking around and decided to head left, towards a rocky area where we could see some waves breaking. It turned out to be a good choice and an amazing sight, something which we couldn’t take our eyes off for a fair few minutes. There’s also a nearby hill which we found good to climb so we could watch it again from a different perspective.
We managed to spend a few hours walking around without noticing the time passing, and realised we should find a good spot, out of the sun to have our lunch. We couldn’t find any as the beach doesn’t offer much shade, but still found a nice area to eat our sandwiches. It sounds quite dull to have sandwiches for lunch and then again for dinner (something that we got used to) but to be honest, when you’re sitting on warm black sand, with the sun shining on your back and just a bit of background noise from the breaking waves in the distance, the crickets chirping and nothing else to worry about... sandwiches suddenly don’t sound that bad.
After lunch was stop two: ARATAKI Visitor Centre. It’s a good place to visit and has toilets, food, and drinks. If you don’t fancy the free water available inside, there is also a van parked outside which offers both a wider selection of food, and bottled water... water which must have been imported from a secret glacier on the moon, as you’ll need to take out a mortgage to buy one of these.
The viewing platforms in the visitor centre are a great place for some photo’s, or if you’re like us... a great place to have some more food. There is a view for miles of the rainforest below and comfy chairs/beanbags provided for a little relaxation time outside. We stopped for around 15 minutes before choosing one of the many tracks to walk. (Note: not all of them may be open due to the Kauri disease control measures) The nature track over the road took us just under an hour to complete the lower loop, which meant we still had a lot of time left in our day to move on to the next location.
Stop 3 was Karekare Falls, a small area with a waterfall standing around 30 metres tall. As far as New Zealand standards go, 30 metres isn’t particularly high for a waterfall but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an amazing place to be. There is no deafening roar as the water hits the pool below, no mist spraying in your face if you want to get close enough to be in the moment or take the perfect photo, no climbing down rock faces and trekking hours to get to the destination, but perhaps best of all... no people.
Yes this was the most peaceful, tranquil place we had found since the start of our travels, and thanks to some nearby rocks sheltered by palm trees, the perfect place to sit and write. Sabina was in another world as she sat down by the falls and scribbled away happily in her diary, watching the birds while Liam practiced his photography.
Yeah at some point we’re going to have to go back there because I think I still need a bit more practice...
As the sun started to set we walked past another smaller waterfall by the exit, before returning to the car for what we thought would be the journey home.
When we got back to the road we realized that the sun wasn’t as low as it seemed to be by the waterfall, and so as a last minute decision, we decided to check out Karekare Beach - named as one of the most dangerous beaches in New Zealand due to the fierce waves. What a decision this turned out to be. Getting there took around 15 minutes but we were rewarded with a spectacular sunset on an almost empty beach. To briefly sum up Karekare Beach, it’s the type of place that you would have as a desktop wallpaper on your iMac... you know, something with perfect colours in 4k that would show off how good the screen is, and make you want to go on holiday every time you saw it.
It’s no wonder films such as The Pianist and Xena were filmed here, it’s the perfect location for anything; sunset walks... you’ll be isolated from reality, surfing... the waves are dangerously huge, instagram photos... you won’t have to wait for the people in front of you to move, setting a land speed record... to be fair there’s probably enough room. (We do not take responsibility for any injuries that may occur trying to set a land speed record here, btw)
We spent around an hour and a half enjoying the warm colours and reflections of the sunset in the sea, it was still warm for the evening and so we stayed until we could barely see anymore. There’s always something satisfying about finishing your day with a beach sunset, and for us it was the perfect ending to our first day out.
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