Can I Move Here??

Friday, July 10th

The sun was just starting to light up the sky when we woke this morning around 7 am.  We bundled up to trek into the main house to use the restroom and get some tea. All of the tea I've had here so far has been much better than the stuff I can usually grab at home. 

Claire, our host, greeted us in our mini-kitchen and offered us toast for breakfast since the shop wouldn't be open for a few hours. Our toast was topped with passionfruit curd and real peanut butter with bananas. Passionfruit curd is delicious! 

As soon we finished breakfast we got ready for the day and hiked out to Kitekite falls. It was only meant to be about an hour round trip but it's hard not to stop and look around every 5 minutes. There are just too many fun things to see. 

On the way in we learned about a tiny pathogen that is killing off some of the native trees called Kauri trees. It's a tiny microscopic spore that hikers often can unknowingly carry around on their boots. If this pathogen finds its way to a Kauri root it can kill the whole tree. This is why on the way in and out of the hiking trails, there are boot scrubbing stations where hikers can disinfect and scrub their boots clean, to protect the Kauri trees. This pathogen is called Phytophthora taxon Agathis (PTA), and is related to the same microbe that caused the Irish potato famine in the 1840's. (The more you knoooooow!)

The falls were incredible! We went right down to the water and stared up at the mountains on one side and the falls on the other. 

On our back back out we realized we were STARVING so we stopped at the Piha Café for the world's best omelettes. Yeah, we took pictures...it was that good. (Or maybe we were just that hungry). 

After brunch, we went to the Piha "Store". It was kind of a disappointing selection. We were hoping to get supplies for breakfast and lunch the next day, but a cup of yogurt was $6 and a jar of pasta sauce was $9. Seriously? That's not happening. We opted to buy some cheaper fresh baked muffins and stash them away for breakfast the next day.  We stopped by our hut for a quick cup of tea/rest/nap. We've been getting a lot of reading done here. Not something we ever have time for on clinics anymore, so it's nice to do something I enjoy again. 

In the afternoon we trekked back out to the beach and wandered around in the frigid wind by the waves on the shore. We walked out on rocks that huge waves were breaking against and listened to the rumble every time a wave smashed into the rocks. A few times the spray from a wave came close to getting us. 

We left the rocks and started climbing a trail we found leading up to the cliffs, overlooking to beach. 

The trail kept winding so we kept following it, not really sure where it was going.  It led is along the edges of the cliffs and back down to the gap between rocks were waves were breaking.

It led us even further on to what we have affectionately named "the crack". It's essentially a hollowed out slit of rock where waves slide in and out all day, through a cave. 

The hike back out was even more amazing since the sun was setting. We stopped and lazed around in a meadow for a little while. Murphy amazed me with her incredible somersaulting abilities (nope.) and we watched the clouds start to change color overhead. The landscape changes so quickly from rocky cliffs to thick grass in a field to sand and back again. 

I think he best part of the hike for both of us, was the sunset from the the top of the cliffs. There's no way to describe a sunset, especially one that happens over mountains and rocks and ocean and layers of fluffy clouds.  Of all of the sunsets I've seen, in all of the places I've been, this one was absolutely my favorite by far. 

Dinner at the RSA (Returned Services Association) was absolutely delicious. I had fish and chips (yummmm) and Murphy had veggie curry. We went bank to out hit and ended our evening with a movie night in Claire's Moroccan themed living room.