West Coast City Break

We decided to stay in and around Auckland over the 4 day Bank Holiday weekend to beat the traffic; most journeys were taking up to twice as long - yuck!

To make up for it we decided to hit the Waitakares on the West Coast, just one hour's drive from Auckland. We visited three of these famous beaches - Karekare, Piha and Anawhata.

We first visited Karekare beach shortly after emigrating when we completed our first NZ tramp. However our reason for visiting this time was to watch the annual Karekare Beach horse races.

The races are a joint fundraiser for the local one room school and surf life-saving club. Some tents selling cakes, hot dogs and coffee were erected in the middle of the beach and the various horse races took place along the sea's edge. Some were over very quick; the pony and cart races, somewhat slower. Far more scenic than the Grand National however!

After watching our fair share of races we decided to get out of the sun and have a spot of lunch. So off to Piha, probably the most famous west coast beach and the most populated. Whereas Karekare has a surf lifesaving club and nothing more, Piha is a small community complete with Library, Cafe, Gallery, RSA (Royal Legion) and of course, it's own surf club. It also happens to have a campground, where we stayed the night.

The afternoon's entertainment was a climb up Lion's Rock followed by an hour just taking in the view.

Before heading back to cook dinner and marvel at the sunset. Finished the night off with a few jars at the RSA - thankfully barely affected by the power cut that was to last all weekend in Piha.

A quick brekkie and a very slow coffee at Piha Cafe(half the town was there for brekkie due to the power cut). Then on to Anawhata beach a shortish drive North of Piha. Only accessible by gravel road followed by a steep walk down from the car park - so much less people here.

A black sand beach much like both Karekare and Piha, complete with rocky outcrops and enclosed on all sides by bush. Thankfully, some clouds rolled over as we started the walk - it was very hot again. The rain came just as we arrived back at the car; perfect timing to end an almost perfect weekend.....