Trip to the BEACH! Piha Black sand beach

This is our Preparation Day (P) day and we decided to drive to the beach. Piha is a small town near this beautiful black sand beach. On the west side of New Zealand. ( first day I have had on jeans in a full month).

Manukau Habor on the west side of the North Island.

We stopped at a rain forest not a tropical rain forest because we are not in the tropics but it was very green and very beautiful. The visitor center had examples of gorgeous birds we could have tramped (hiked) to see but because we were heading toward the beach we wanted to keep going. The road to this place is very curvy and narrow!

Learning to speak the Maori language. It doesn't come naturally to me. Neither does Samoan or Tongan but we still try and sing in those languages because it is important to the people, especially Tongans. The Tongans sing with great gusto. Our mission president encouraged us to be the loudest singers, but I have proven I can't do that, though we try.

We found this interesting. We didn't see any penguins, but we found out it is possible.

Lion Rock

This is the black sand beach. Made of volcanic rock. Very sparkly. There were a few people on the beach but not many. It is still winter but it was a sunny day.

Ok it was sunny at times but we still had coats on because of the wind and bit of cool weather. Looking this way it was all misty, looking the other way it was very clear.

Good try to hold a sea gull

The water is so clear.

Walking out over the volcanic rock wasn't easy going but the view was very worth it.

There was this orange thing in the corner that we never got to see what it was. We needed Sam the tide pool explorer's help to find out what creature it was.

The color of this water was simply amazing!

Very powerful waves! Very healing and relaxing. I could have stayed all day. That was not an option.

Little flower growing in hard circumstances.

This is a shell that we found and a needle to a  pine that is like a Norfolk pine but huge. The branches come out level with each other and then it goes up to another level. They are wonderful. Notice the homes that look directly at the beach. It was good I wasn't coveting them, don't you think?

We got in our very new Toyota and I couldn't get it to start. The key didn't seem to go in correctly. I needed to go to a lady that was out working out in her yard and she called a mechanic that didn't normally work on Monday. He came in about 2 minutes and had us up and going. The key is still a bit wonky but with effort it works.

These are electrical boxes that someone has beautified. Thought Tyler would enjoy seeing these. Up close they are a bit strange but passing by they look great. Love the colors and the birds depicted.

We were trying to get picture of the curly new fern branches coming out of the top of this tree fern. The motif is in a lot of places and this fern leaf is displayed too. We will keep trying to get a better picture of them.

This was a great day. We came home early to go a visit a lady and her children. She had stopped us at the grocery store and made an appointment with us. She was not home, it turned out, but the next day we went back and she was there, we taught her the Restoration lesson and she invited us back.

Today we just met up with Tom and Donna Noland. They are doing so well. It was great to see them and remember Merle Heuitt. Wonderful lady!