Picture-perfect Piha

Decided to get out of the city today in order to get a taste of the natural side of New Zealand. A souvenir shop keeper in Auckland yesterday recommended the "bush and beach" tour so I took her advice and booked it! Just as the tour guide pulled up to my hotel, it started to rain. As the weather worsened to thunder and lightning, passengers called in and cancelled last-minute, to the point that only two others were brave enough to continue with the tour. The plan was to walk through a subtropical rainforest, visit a waterfall, and a black sand beach due west of Auckland.

Luckily, the weather gods were smiling down on our van from above the clouds, and by the time we reached our first stop (a bakery that makes the most delicious steak pie I have ever tasted) the rain had stopped and a big rainbow was left in its place.

Anyhow, one of our stops was Piha, a tiny surfer town 40 minutes from Auckland tucked away near one of New Zealand's many dormant volcanoes. That big rock in the middle is Lion Rock, and it is a big lava plug - that is, it was once magma that has since hardened into rock on top of a volcanic vent. You can't tell from the shadows in this picture but it does look like a sitting lion, kind of like the Sphinx I guess.