Maybe a bit more...

The night after that we went for another walk.  We checked tides and knew that we were hitting low tide which was good.  This time we walked north on takapuna beach.  Takapuna is really the best beach in this area and people really like it.  We walked north to the boat dock and then onward.  There are lots of rocks along the way and little sand.  They have been walked so much there is a pathway in the lava.  It was fun to see all the things.

Along this stretch of beach the houses come right down to the rocks.  There are walls and gates etc but there has never been large beaches etc.  You can see how close the homes are to the edge here.

Someone built a "chair" or bench along the trail for people to sit in.  Probably it was for them to come out and sit in but since no one was there we decided to take a photo!

In one yard we saw that they had their own incline.  Reminded me of the inclines in Pittsburgh.  What a funny thing I thought.

A part of the trail had once been a walkway along the top of a rock wall but it was closed. You had to walk just behind it on what was referred to as "private property" but there was a good path so I figured this particular part of the trail had been closed for a long time.

We conitnued on until we got to caster bay. That is about four little bays up.  When we got there we found that there is an inlet that was probably 20 feet wide and many feet deep. We thought that maybe at some time it would be shallow enough to walk through but then we saw a sign that said the water was not clean and do not swim or walk in it.  And we decided that it probably would not get much smaller.  It was almost low tide and as it was none of the boats in the marina would have been able to get out.  You had to walk all the way around the marina and on streets to get to the other side so we decided to save that walk for another day.  We then came back on the streets.  It was again a fun experience to see landmarks and discover interesting things.  

This was one of the most interesting things we saw.  It is a disk that rotates your car because it was too small of a driveway to turn around in and if you backed out it was onto a busy street.  Clever huh?  I had heard about these in bus stations and train stations but had never seen one in a private home.

We also saw this "castle" which is supposed to have been built in England and then dismantled and reconstructed here.  Not very big as you can see but a fun thing.

So...we are walking back south to our car and the beach is on our left, maybe four houses from the street to the water.  Then to our right is Lake Papuke.  I knew it was close but didn't know it was this close.  This is taken at the narrowest distance between the bay and the lake.  Not very far.  

Another nice walk...about 9 km.