Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Black Beach Only (No racism here folks!)

Before discussing today's events, I just want to comment on something. In Australia, if you didn't know better, one could walk around and hear/see nothing about aborigines, and their culture. Here in New Zealand, it's completely different. The Maori people are still strong in society, and although people aren't walking around in leather skirts and screaming war chants, the culture is thriving. There are Maori words all over the place, and the professor at Unitec even described yesterday how normally, he would greet us in Maori. Well, he proceeded to speak in Maori, and let me tell you... It's a very guttural, and hard to understand language. I am glad to see that the Maori people didn't just assimilate and lose their identity. 

Back to today's adventures... We ventured out, in a much nicer, less rickety, bus than the last bus trip we took, to Piha beach. On the way, we stopped for a quick rest, and also to see an amazing view of the New Zealand countryside. The building on site has won awards for it's architecture. That said, I feel like a bad student for not knowing more about it than that.

Maori sculpture







 The beach is also known as the Black beach, because of the iron content in the sand. The sand is literally black. Also, if I had the forethought to take a magnet to the beach, I would have been able to pick up sand with it! The view of Lion Rock, standing tall and proud, was amazing. You know where you are ready to go home from the beach, but your feet are all sandy, so you don't want to put your shoes on? With no shoes, the hot sand begins to burn your feet so you hop around like a mad man? Imagine that with BLACK sand. Someone get me some ice for my feet!!!


Having a blast


Jason rolled in the sand...


1 comment:

  1. I am so glad you got over to Piha. It is one of my favorite beaches. It sounds like you are having a wonderful time.

    ReplyDelete