Eyes Above The Waves

Today is Anzac Day. It was a perfect late autumn/winter's day in Auckland --- sunny, not much wind, cool, but warm under the sun. We wanted to go for a walk somewhere nice with friends and relatives, and since I haven't been out west for a while I picked Bethell's Beach. I can only remember going to that area once, and that was over a decade ago. We walked north around the hills overlooking the ocean, following the track that leads all the way to Muriwai and Goldie Bush. The track ascends from sea level steeply to the top of a ridge, where we had a picnic lunch with amazing views south all the way to the sandbanks of Whatipu (faintly visible in the photo below), and north probably as far as the Kaipara heads --- an amazing vista of the "Auckland west coast". Wrangling kids was stressful at the time, but already those memories are fading while the highlights remain.