After church today, we drove to Muriwai Beach to see the black sand beach on the west side of the north island. The west side beaches have waves and there were lots of people surfing there. Muriwai Beach is also famous for the gannet colony. Gannets are birds that are indigenous to this area. They make their nests in November and lay their eggs soon after. The babies hatch in December and January. There were lots of baby gannets that looked like balls of fuzz. Some of the babies were already nearly as big as the parent birds. Below is a huge rock in the ocean that some of these gannets chose to be the place they laid their eggs. I guess this puts a new meaning on being island bound until those chicks get big enough to fly.

Below is a closeup of the gannets. The mothers and fathers are protecting their babies which look like balls of fuzz. After seeing the gannets, we walked on the black sand and it was hot, much hotter sand than the white sand on the east coast beaches here. We hope to visit a different beach each weekend so we can walk along the shore forever if it is low tide and collect gorgeous shells and occasionally some sea glass. There are beaches everywhere, we can even walk to Takapuna Beach in 5 minutes from our office. We love it.