muriwai beach

we're nearing the end of summer here in NZ, which means i have little time left to take advantage of the beautiful weather here.  though the winters aren't necessarily cold here, it rains pretty consistently which makes some of the beautiful sites i still have yet to see significantly less beautiful.  besides, i can't be expected to get a decent self portrait in front of said sights with rain hair.

anyway, this week we have wednesday off from work as it's a public holiday, so i took advantage of my day off and headed up to muriwai beach.

muriwai beach

black sand

we took a quick stroll along the beach, which was amazing as it is a black sand beach - something i have never seen in person before.  i want to go on and on about how beautiful it was, but i'm feeling a little self conscious about the romantic notion of walking on a beach seeing as i was with two girls, so i'll just have to hope you can grasp how awesome it was through my photos. 

after our walk along the beach, we made our way to the caves on the beach.  these are only accessible at low tide, but luckily our trip was timed perfectly so we could take a walk through these amazing caves.  the colors were amazing - black, tan, and something like a purple color that almost seemed unnatural.  i have this random desire to somehow incorporate the word "ombre" into the description, but i'll resist.

oh yeah, please ignore the guy in the center of the picture, who's peeing in the cave.  probably wouldn't have even noticed that if i didn't point it out, but if it made one of you laugh, it was worth it.

just taking casual photos of someone else's photos in the caves

there were also several footpaths along the beach and through the wooded area around the beach.  we walked through the quarry trail to the look out point (also apparently called the hillary trail?).  as you would expect, the view from the top was fantastic and we again had another moment i feel the need to de-romanticize, with a picnic of cheezels, grapes, and a banana. not romantic, right?

the hillary trail? i don't know what you think, but i'm pretty sure "hillary" is a slightly modified picture of elvis

sunset over the black sand