Muriwai beach is a black sand beach on the west coast of New Zealand about 30 minutes north of Auckland. The waves off the Tasman Sea pound the sand and cliffs making it a favorite spot of surfers. A campground near Muriwai beach was our destination for Saturday night.
Enroute to Muriwai, we stopped for a quick mountain bike ride at
Sanders Reserve. Although this new bike park is aesthetically pleasing, the trails are not for the faint of heart. I struggled on the steep down hills into hairpin turns and on the hairpin turns into steep uphill bursts even taking a pretty hard fall on one turn bruising my hip and knee. We definitely had more fun at
Woodhill on our last mountain bike adventure.
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| Sanders Reserve Bike Park |
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| Trail Map |
We arrived at
Muriwai Beach Motor Camp around 2 pm and got our campsite set up before riding down to the beach. We spent some time exploring and then cooked an early dinner of hotdogs in order to finish eating before the sunset. Watching the sunset on the beach was a perfect end to a great afternoon. We returned to the beach after dark to explore a little more and look at the stars. We had no luck identifying constellations but did spot two satellites. Although it was a little cold overnight, we stayed pretty warm bundled and cuddled up in our car.
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| First view of Muriwai Beach |
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| View from the grill |
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| Sunset over Muriwai Beach |
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| Another sunset over Muriwai shot |
It was so nice to wake up to a crisp morning with the sound of the ocean on the breeze. We packed up our site and had breakfast (eggs benedict and a scone...can you guess who had what?) at the nearby Sand Dunz Beach Cafe. We capped off our stay at Muriwai with a short hike up to a few different lookout points. The views were spectacular and if the number of surfers were any indication, the waves were as well.
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| Looking down over Muriwai Beach |
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| To prove I was in fact on this trip...and yes, I am dressed like an eskimo while most Kiwi's were in shorts. To be fair this is at like 8 in the morning. |
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| Morning at Muriwai |
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| Waves crashing on the rocks |
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| To prove Justin was on the trip |
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| Looking down on Maori Bay |
2 comments:
Muriwai is such a nice beach - glad you guys were able to go!
Those sunset shots are gorgeous. However, in looking at the final two photos of the post, I find I cannot really believe you. It is obvious that you took the last shot and just cut-and-pasted Justin in to make it look as if he accompanied you. Please, you are better than that.