Heading West to Piha

With Pearl loaded up we turn west from Auckland, a short 15 kilometer scenic trip through the Waitakere Ranges Regional Park brings us to the coast. From the top of the hill Piha looks amazing; at the bottom it's spectacular. Winding down through a narrow road, I grip the handle every time we pass someone as I see Pearl drive over the fog line to make room. There is no shoulder here and my options are either shut the window to keep the bush from hitting me in the face or a deadly collision. In the parking lot I take a few pictures and dip my feet in the Tasman Sea. Deciding my surf skills are not to compete with these sets we're off to lunch by a nearby lagoon.







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Lunch in Piha at the lagoon the lion in front







Sorta looks like a lion



Cornwall Park



The first place we come across while looking for a market is Cornwall Park. It's an awesome park with a huge obelisk on the top of a volcanic cone, called one tree hill, where the guy who donated the park, Sir John Logan Campbell is buried. We drive right up to the top and break out the chairs and go about making dinner. It has lots of sheep that wander the park and are enclosed in gates we did'nt come across any on our walk but we were aware that they had been there.

Courtesy of http://www.cornwallpark.co.nz/

On the Road





Not a photo of her best side, but we love her.



We bought the van and it came with a name, Pearl. Heaping our things into the Toyota in the morning it registered that quarters are about to get tighter than the rooms we were staying in. We have our foodstuffs in the back and of course it has already been modified for camping, the bed folds up for lounge-mode and it's pretty comfy to watch movies on the laptop in. The surfboard storage above takes a lot of the headroom out of the equation, and it takes some organizing before cooking or movie watching but it's a pretty comfy ride when we get going.