We went to Piha beach today. It's on the west coast, facing the Tasman Sea and Australia (which is 1,000 miles away). Most of Auckland faces east towards the Pacific coast and South America (6,000 miles away).
Piha is a famous surfer beach because it has such wild waves. It also has an unpredictable rip tide, and swimmers need rescuing there a few times every week. There's frequent stories in the newspaper about the latest rescue.
We had to drive on a winding road over a small range of mountains to get to the west coast. It only takes about 30 minutes (!) from Auckland to get there; you're actually crossing the entire isthmus.
The beach was beautiful (aren't they all?) and there were maybe 100 people. There was also 4 lifeguards and assorted lifsaving vehicles. One lifeguard was being filmed that day as a cameraman followed him around. Apparently there is a whole TV show about the Piha lifeguards.
There were about 20 or 30 surfers out in the water, but not a lot of actual surfing going on. Mostly they stand around and socialise with each other, waiting to catch a good wave, I guess. About every 5 minutes, one of them gets up on his board and surfs 50 feet or so until they wipe out. It was fun to watch :)
I could have laid there for hours, reading and napping and listening to the surf, but we didn't want to get burned so we didn't stay too long. The ozone layer is VERY thin down here, and people are acutely aware of skin cancer. Everyone wears hats, from babies on up to old people. The burn index that day was 12 ... on a scale of 1-11. Really.
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