Running with the Ward's: Muriwai

In November, we were fortunate enough to have the Auckland marathon take place right outside our apartment. This international event attracted two pro-marathoners who we happened to know. We were also lucky enough to have these pro-marathoners want to hang out with us for the duration of their New Zealand stay! Seriously though, we had a great time visiting with Pat and Dan while they visited Auckland and completed the Auckland marathon despite the intense sun and shortage of water!

Pat and Dan around half way

Posing mid-race in front of Rangitoto...love this one!

We had some fun dinners in town and a memorable trip to Piha and Muriwai on the west coast. We had a hard time tearing Dan away from the Gannet colony viewing area and Pat was overwhelmed by the fine and soft black sand beaches!

Aw, isn't he cute??

Posing at Piha

Pat, Dan and I at Muriwai

View from the Gannet colony lookout

Although I had to leave half way through their stay for new senior manager training, I was happy to have friends from home visiting while leaving Justin to travel 11 hours to Malaysia.

My favorite quote of the trip was Pat asking shortly before leaving Dallas if we lived anywhere near the Hilton. Ha I responded, we live literally next door! Perfect!

Pat said we should kiss for the photo....

From Mount Eden

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.

Sanders Reserve Bike Park

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.

First view of Muriwai Beach

View from the grill

Sunset over Muriwai Beach

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.

Looking down over Muriwai Beach

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.