Woke up and wasn’t feeling jet lagged at all….yeah!
We had decided the day before that we were going to go on a day trip to Piha. Sheila had gone before by herself but was rushed so she wanted to go again. The drive was insane…really twisty/turny road that two cars can barely fit through and there is no shoulder what so ever.
About half way there a truck coming the other way was flicking its lights at us…we noticed but didn’t really know what dude was trying to tell us. A few minutes later we drove into a road stop…there was a cop breathalyzing the drivers. A drunk driving checkpoint at 11:00am…awesome. The cop could tell we seemed a little bit surprised by it and made the observation that “you guys are not from New Zealand are you?”….apparently it is normal here or something. Getting a DUI would be embarrassing anyway but could you imagine the embarrassment of getting a DUI before noon on a Friday? New low…
Sheila passed the breathalyzer and we kept driving…. 
Later while watching tv they showed an advert of a guy getting breathalyzed and getting thrown in jail for being on drugs so I guess they are testing for more than just alcohol. I also saw an advert/public service announcement warning people that it is never “ok” to shake a baby. The more you know…
We arrived at Piha a little before noon and it was overcast which kind of sucked because it was actually really nice when we left Auckland. Piha is a really cool cove with a huge rock in the middle called Lion Rock. The sand in Piha is kind of black and has really cool specks of shinyness in it. Even though it was overcast the sand was still so hot that it still hurt to run across. We walked around on the beach in the rocks and caves and took a bunch of pictures then went up to the top of Lion Rock.
Sheila had seen signs saying there were penguins at Piha the last time She went there but she didn’t see any last time. This time we ran into a park ranger/worker and he told us that they only come out really early in the morning or around 11pmish at night. So we didn’t see any penguins which was slightly disappointing but we still saw some pretty cool stuff.
Photos from Piha:
The Lion Rock in Piha