Chapter
Twenty Eight:24 March 2005
Piha Pictures
kia ora!
Piha was fabulous! The kids couldn't keep their clothes on and ran
straight into the Tasman Sea the first chance they got! They loved the
purply black sand and made like the locals - taking their shoes off
for the entire rest of the day. (I'd bought the boys sandals, but I
guess they couldn't stand to keep them on with all of that lovely warm
soft sand to run around on). The rocky cliff Daniel is standing by looked
a lot more colourful in person.
We went from one end of the beach to the other, this is on the 'other' side. I saw the entrance from a distance and said I wanted to walk over there to check it out. I think it took us an hour to get there because we kept having to stop along the way. Dontcha just love Rose's wings? ahahahaha
The caves are awesome! Apparently blue penguins are supposed to roost here, but they stay in the ocean all day long looking for food and don't come to the caves until night time. I, in the meantime, was being viciously attacked by sand fleas. Not only am I incredibly itchy, but the bites are starting to swell up. The bites are on top of my old healing flea bites. The fleas were in our new home in Te Atatu. :P
We all screamed and jumped as the incoming tide brought with it a mean looking crab, pinchers up and coming right at us! We backed up a bit to look at it, screaming at Rose to come and see! The crab stopped. It was surrounded by seagulls. This mean girly mother stalked it though. Her squawk terrified the males. The crab could sense her apprehension at our humanly presence and ran for it's life!
She followed him - slowly, looking at us, then looking at the crab. It was very intense. The boys were disappointed that she didn't get it. I was very relieved.
Again, it LOOKS gloomy, doomy and overcast, but it's a balmy humid twenty five degrees out today. . .and the boys's cheeks are a tad bit burnt.
We're trekking up Lion's Rock, a Maori iwi's (iwi being like tribe) fishing island and sometimes last line of defense.
There were gobs of tidal pools to check out. This picture makes me laugh MU HAHAHA! bow to your almighty goddess!!!!! just kidding. :D
The kids said some guy was drawing in the sand. They felt a little upset when they saw a couple of people walking right through the drawings.
The view of that cave entrance thing from Lion Rock.
EW! They found a sea slug and wanted me to take it's picture. :P
More beautiful sea stars. They were everywhere.
I had to argue the boys up Lion Rock, then I couldn't get them off of it. Check out the super cool Maori totem!
We have to try and remember that they are more afraid of us than we are of them. . .
We woke up to thunder and lightning at six am. It poured with rain until eight this morning. We are supposed to go to the Auckland Zoo today. At the moment, we're all fighting over streaky bacon. Patrick says Rose started it. She said her three pieces were stuck together so they counted as one. mhmm . . . yeah right! must fight for food at the table!~
much love,
April