Tuesday, July 19
Everyone slept in really well this morning and it was so
nice! Since we didn’t originally think
we’d be getting to Auckland until Wednesday, this extra day in town allowed us
to flex our schedule a bit, but also give us an extra day at the same hotel,
which is kind of nice when you’re traveling around so much, especially with the
kids. We decided to make today our
outdoor nature/driving day since we were staying at the same hotel again, and
it was a good choice.
We headed West to the Waitakere Ranges National Park and
decided we’d go on a nice walk. In New
Zealand, nature “walks” are considered good for everyone, “tramps” are what we’d
consider hikes or for the more advanced.
We grabbed some Subway on the road, and stopped briefly at the Arataki
Visitor Center which had a great view of city and ocean. Since we’d slept in we decided that we had
one or two good hikes in us, and opted to check out the Upper Nihotupo Walk
first. This was a 4.2km walk which was
estimated to be an hour and 20 minutes round trip (we’ve discovered we need to
double the estimated times on our hikes).
This was the perfect excursion. The weather was amazing (mid 50s), the rain
from the morning had let up, and it was a great cloudy afternoon. The path was muddy, but that added to the
fun. The trail went through really nice
native forest, along a river with some waterfalls, and then along the Upper
Nihotupu Reservoir which eventually led us to the Upper Nihotupu Dam. We all
enjoyed the walk, and it was nice for Mason and I to each get some one-on-one
time walking different speeds with each of the boys. Theo is the faster walker, but he’s also the
talker, so we have to trade off with him, haha!
When we reached the Dam it was a pretty cool sight, but it was
WINDY! The kids found some hook and eye
latches on one of the buildings, and thought they were pretty cool. Mason of
course got his photos leaning precariously over the ledge of the Dam. The walk back got a little drizzly, and Theo
and I discussed a great many things, like how “Dam” is a naughty word, but okay
to use sometimes like the kind we saw. Also,
he discussed his thoughts on the baby pooping and peeing inside of me and how
that was going. Sweet boy, just has so
much going on in that brain of his.
By the time we made it back to the car we realized we
probably wouldn’t have time for a second long hike because the sun sets around
5:30pm, we still had to drive a bit to our next location, and the shorter road
to the town of Piha was closed. We took
Piha Road to the Karekare Falls and were hoping to see them and walk around the
black sand Karekare beach. The drive
West from the hike we were on to the Karekare Falls carpark was so scary!
Partially because we still weren’t used to driving on the left, but the road
was NARROW, like super skinny! It was at
this point that Mason made the observation that there was no way he’d have been
able to do this in the Campervan (RV) we discussed renting. True that!
We got to the parking lot and at first had a hard time
finding where the Karekare Falls trail was.
Eventually Mason and Theo walked ahead of Woodrow and I and found
it. I was pretty tired at this point, it
was around 5:00pm, and Woodrow was walking slowly. The first part of the trail was a steep
decline and so Woodrow and I sat at the top along side of the road in the grass
where we could see the waterfall in the distance. Mason and Theo returned saying that the path
was very flat after that decline and we should go check it out, but I was all
good. Sweet Woodrow…when we had been
sitting there he turns around with his sweet little freckled face and starts
making a shooting noise, and tells me he shot my face off-life with boys is
never dull!
In the race against the sun, we trotted back to the carpark
area so we could walk down to the beach, it was getting quite chilly, but after
a short ways the path was covered in water and was impassable. It was a very pretty area, and it would have
been nice to see more of the area, but the day was really nice and peaceful. We
headed back to pick-up dinner closer to the hotel. So much driving around to find food, and it
was just such a hassle. We ended up
going with pizza and taking it back to our hotel room to clean-up and relax
before bedtime. The kids had napped in
the car on the hour ride home from Karekare, so they were a bit wired, but
eventually passed out. I took advantage
of the relaxing tub before heading to bed.
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