Melting moments at the beach

It does seem slightly wrong to talk about stunning weather and trips to the beach, when a more extreme version of this weather has contributed to the deaths of hundreds of people in Australia.  I can’t quite get my head around how fires this horrific can exist, it is like a tsunami of flame, and it is hard to imagine that anyone in Australia who lives near the bush will sleep soundly again.

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We were blessed with a long holiday weekend and perfect weather all over New Zealand, and I and my little band of Auckland explorers made the most of it.  On Friday we went to see some buskers perform in the Buskers Festival, including Bendy Em, a contortionist who managed to fit her entire body into a 16″ square box..check out her website here: http://www.bendyem.com/

On Saturday we made a long awaited trip to Piha, a beach on the west coast very popular for the surfing yet notorious for it’s dangerous rip.  It became slightly more famous with the appearance on our TV screens of Piha Rescue, a reality TV show following the daily rhythm of the volunteer lifeguards who patrol the beach.  I always thought it was extremely boring until one episode something happened – a family came running along the beach, screaming for help – dad had gone missing.  

The lifeguards split up to comb the beach and surrounding rock pools, and some very young trainee lifeguards found his body, floating face down in the water.  It was heart wrenching viewing.  Two teenaged lifeguards struggled to keep their rising emotions in check as they tried to communicate over radio that a body had been found, and keep the body from floating back out to sea until backup arrived.  They were shaking and almost tearful when it was all over, trying terribly hard to be brave, and I decided that actually, Piha Rescue might be better when nothing happened after all.  

So, we were intrigued to see a beach that was both dangerous yet strangely alluring to many people.  The drive out there was delightful, as soon as we started to climb the Waitakare Ranges the girls thought we were in the jungle, the top was down on the mini and the trees formed a beautiful canopy above us.  In the gaps, the girls started spotting cloud pictures – they started with a very identifiable “L”, then a cannonball, but then veered right off into their imagination – a pirate ship, a ballerina, an elephant – I hadn’t thought it was a very cloudy day up til then.  

Piha is a lovely beach, a long stretch of black sand bisected by Lion Rock.  The sun bore down, and the sand was too hot to walk on for more than a few minutes.  Bess was hugely excited but also almost overwhelmed by the heat.  We kept her watered and in the shade, but once we left she flopped down in the car and didn’t move a muscle until we got home again.  We had a walk, an ice-cream, explored both parts of the beach, then headed back home.  

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On Sunday, we ventured out to Waiheke Island. We decided to leave our itinerary in the hands of an expert, and took a tour that started with a ferry ride to the island, followed by a bus tour.  We hopped off the bus as it made its way back to the ferry, at Little Oneroa Beach, which is a perfect family beach with safe swimming water, a playground, picnic area with lots of shady trees, and a shop selling ice-cream.  It was so hot that although the beach was very tempting we stayed in the shade and let the girls eat two ice-creams for lunch each.  The swings were so hot we had to put newspaper on the seats before Lulu could have a swing.

As soon as we arrived back home we all got straight into the pool to cool off, which was a short term solution (albeit a lovely one) – that night it was still 27 degrees at 10pm.   The girls were uncharacteristically difficult to wake up the next morning – a very successful weekend