NOrth Head, with Grace too

So before Kare Kare (so really it should be first) we took Grace over to Devonport and up North Head to see the tunnels and the guns and the view back across the city where we'd been that morning. Despite the morning fog that lasted till midday, that's how you can tell it's winter, the sun came out to play a cracker of day for us all. Pete and i were chuffed as we want Grace to go back to London and tell our friends how warm and lushious enzed is and not all rain and thunder clouds, but it is winter afterall, miracles don't happen everyday! well, except this one, and the next :) I love new zealand.

Those smiles say, I just had eggs for breakfast, laughed at a bowl of latte, the suns come out, there's Mt Rangitoto, we're standing on a hill, we can see the sea, it's a good day.

What a view eh? On the other side of North Head you look out over Auckalofa, our silver city.

That's Devonport to the right below, with the ferry that takes you right into the viaduct.

you can see the NZ weather mustering up a typical sudden change with the rain cloud on the left of the flag pole and the clear blue skies on the right. The gun/ cannon thing is inactive incase you were concerned. North Head was used as a barrack to protect Aucklands harbour during the second world war. There are tunnels that run in and out of the hill, most of them still open to the public and excellent for touring at night with a torch and some wine.

Inside a tunnel below, Grace called this my own 'come towards the light' moment, but really the view framed by the hole was pretty amazing.

 

 

Pete and Grace in the tunnels, pretty amazing the layers of rock.

I forgot how cool it was to have North Head as a kid growing up. Grace pointed out that if it was England everything would be fenced off and boarded up for safety reasons, which is true. We may have lost the Cats Trail at Beachhaven Primary School but we've still got North Head.

Kare Kare Beach with Grace

So Grace arrived from the Thai Jungle on Friday and in her brief stay in Auckland we tried to show her a few of the more beautiful parts of the city. On Sunday we took her out to Kare Kare Beach on the West Coast, through the Waitakere Ranges. A 40 minute drive from Auckland and we were there, Pete fell into the stream below as Grace and I nimbly hopped across the rocks, alas we weren't camera ready but had a good laugh with the other stream hoppers, poor wet feet baby.

Kare Kare is amazing, you can see pete and grace are just simply in awe ;)

   

The great hills behind them are made up of Volcanic stone and loom straight up out of the dunes. The whole place feels jurassic and you can see why so many films have taken shots from here.

Me and Pete strolling bare feet kiwi style with the picnic and rug. In summer jandels are a pre-requisite due to the high iron content in the sand, it can heat up to an unbearable temp and you see people seriously hot footing it to the waters edge as it sneaks in over the rims of their shoes. In winter though as we are now, it's just lovely, silky and warm.

Isn't it just stunning, it fair takes your breath away when you're standing in it.

endless.

So this is funny, sort of. For me anyway. Pete and I make our way up the top of the sand dune, we've eaten our picnic, wandered the beach stretch and copped a squat in the tussock, only thing left to do? climb a dune and run down the other side at full tilt. we've done this before, but this time we have someone at the bottom of the hill armed with a camera.

I take off first, see that? leaping, BOUNDING in fact, yeyyyyyy, you know that kind of run, Pete's still standing at the top, the words, 'gee that looks awful steep' just passing his lips.

And then he's off, now I'm not sure if you can see his run so I've zoomed in for you below.

 

 

'and one skip hop, traa laa laa'. I laughed so hard when Grace showed me the pics at the bottom. She said, 'are you very competetive?' I pondered the question and before I answered Grace says with a smile, 'thought so'. HA! ....'got my handbag, got my shoes, ooh icky icky sand!'...