Different strokes for different folks!

I guess all the years in the states with you and your kids has taught me that there is a proper car seat for each and every situation.  An infant, rear-facing one for new ones and a bigger one on up to the booster.  I remember that we did not have to use car seats for the kids as long as they were in seat belts. In fact, I only ever owned one car seat and each of my children took turns sititng it in.  Very small babies were held on a lap or were is an infant seat carrier that was like the car seats for infants today but were not strapped in.  In know, we were dumb, ignorant and did not care very much for our children to do such a thing to them!  But after the laws and restrictions in the US it is a little surprising to be here and to see what we see.  Kids are not required to be in car seats and even infants are not restrained.  I saw a baby car seat, like the ones you all use, sitting, sideways in the front seat but not bucklet in.  Mom was feeding the baby a bottle while she drove.  I see little kids riding in the front seat (I know another no no) all the time.  

Maybe the thing that bothers me the most happens in the morning.  As you have learned from this blog we live across the street from a catholic school that has students of all ages in it.  The street that goes between us and the school is two lanes going in on direction and that lane is right by the school.  There is one other lane that goes the opposite direction from which you need to make a right turn (remember we are on the other side of the road) into the school and it is on our side of the road.    But usually, those moms and dads that are dropping their kids off do not want to pull into the school.  If they drop them off on the other side of the road, right in front of our place, they can continue on and it is an easy entry to the motorway to go on into Auckland.  So each morning I can look out my window and see kids climbing from cars, from the front and the back seats and then they frog hop across three lanes of traffic to get to the school while their parents just drive off.  I feel like screaming at those parents becuase many of those kids can not be more than 6 or 7 and they are alone, crossing that street!  Makes one sad to see what is important to different folks.  

Mary, Mary... how does your garden grow?

I have always had a fascination with sea shells.  I always come home from each of our walks with a pocket full of shells and of course the sand that goes with them.  I have found that each beach has its own species oo kind that you see the very most.  So, in the spirit of sharing I have some photos of the different shells and a bit of information to share.  Please pay attention.

These shells I found on Cheltenham Beach nearly two weeks ago.  They are very rough and all on the ourside but they are very smooth on the inside.  I am not sure what they are called but they are all over the place.  The bumps or ridges on the ourside are not sharp but rather smooth.  

This is an example of one that I picked up on Mirangi Beach.  It is two shells that are fused together .  If you turn this over it is just like this on side.  Not sure why they are connected.  These are smaller and are only about the sixe of quarters.  This was the most prevelant shell on that entire beach.  Interesting because I had not seen it before.  

These shells I picked on two different sides of the island.  The smaller ones I picked up on the east coast.  The small blue one I found mostly at Long Bay Beach and they were everywhere.  They are relatively flat with just a bit of rounding on the outside.  They are smooth and have some color on the inside but it is usually just one color, like blue and then white.   They are about the size of a silver dollar.  The bigger ones I found at Muriwai, which is the black sand beach on the west coast of the island.  They are rounded on the top and are about an inch thick.  On the one side they are almost straight and there is no curve to it at all.  They are similar to the smaller ones inside.  The two white ones on the right are almost the very same but the bigger one is very shinny and translucent.  Pretty.  The bigger ones are about the size of a tennis ball.  

These I also got on the west coast and you can see from them that they are very flat on the one side.  I thought maybe the shell needed to get bigger for that to happen but the smallest one here is the size of a quarter.  They are so fun to look at.  

In reference to the Mary, Mary....the garden grows with silver bells and cockle shells....these are cockle shells.  Now you know. (They are also called a pipi shell.)

What a beautiful walk on a lovely beach

After we saw the birds and the other black sand beach we walked over to Muriwai beach.  It is very long and was very pretty.  I found many shells that were similar in color to those that I found on the east beaches but they were shaped differently.  One day I will take pictures of the different shells and discuss them.  The next pictures are of that beach.

This is a big cave that is on the north side of the outcrop of land.  We wondered if maybe it is the same cave that we saw on the other side.  It looks like the cave from the movie Goonies don't you think?

These two were taken from up on the hillside.  If I had turned around we would have been looking at the hillside that you followed the trail up to the bird colony.  

I think this gives you a flavor of what we saw over there.  One thing all the sites I read said about this beach was that you need to be sure and bring good and proper shoes during the summer as the sands get very hot because they absorb the heat because they are black.  The one ranger told us that it is hard to find a place to sit on the beach because there will be so many surfers.  He laughed at the few that were out in the water with their boards today because all they would be is wanna bes....there were notwaves today he said.  It was a rough and wild beach compared to those that are on the east side of the north island where we live.  

What a fun day it was to go and see something that is so different than we have ever seen before.  It was a fun day.  I was complaining that I had planned on bringing a plastic baggie so I could put some black sand in to keep.  But I forgot.  How fun it was to remove my shoes when we got home and find that I had a fair sampling of the black stuff right there for the taking.  And when I washed the shells that I collected I was able to add even more.  It was a great day....a real P-day....play day!

A science lesson now....

One of the things that makes this a unique place to visit is that between the beach in the previous posting and the next one you passed a large bird colony.  From August to March this is a colony for gannets....a large Australian bird that weighs about 6 pounds.  They migrate to this area fro Australia each spring to lay their one egg and then after a few weeks they migrate 2000 kms across the Tasman Sea to Australia.  The birds mate for life.  It was fascinating to see them.  They are a beautiful bird and they fly beautifully.  

So the birds are now all over these outcroppings of land.  And there are even some on the island in the sea off the coast.  The ones on the island off the coast arrive earlier and do not stay as long in the summer.  Maybe they are the oldest ones who cannot get all the way to the land.  We saw a ranger working and he said that they are in the counting period right now and then they will lay an egg.  They take turns sitting on the egg.  It said that when the eggs hatch it really smells.  But then you get used to it and it is ok.

They are really a pretty bird.  

The two that are standing up to each other are counting.  There are a couple of different "couples" here.  It was amazing to watch them.  

They are very graceful as they fly.  The area is very windy and the birds like to glide on the currents.  When the baby birds have gotten big enough to make the flight to Australia they kind of take a running leap into the air and their wings catch the currents.  They then have time to glide on the currents and get used to flying and using their wings.  Hopefully that happens before they crash into the sea.  They eat only seafood so they can sustain themselves as they fly over the Tasman Sea.  

Muriwai Beach

Today when we went out for our preparation day we decided to go west instead of east.  We had been that direction before but did not go all the way to the coast.   It was only a 45 minutes drive from the flat to there.  There were rolling green hills as we went.  We saw lots of lat sheep....or they appeared to be fat since they still had all their wool from the winter.  We also saw lots of baby lambs.  We also saw horses that were coverd with blankets (it was 60 degrees today) and cattle, both black and whites as well as just black.  Slowly the vegetation changed as well and the soil became very dark, almost black.  And then we saw the beach!  It was a black sand beach!  We actually saw two.  You could not get to the one from the other although that might have been possible at low tide.

We saw this cave.  Not sure where it went but the water was like the sea with waves.  It was fun to watch them.  

It was rocky and hard to get down to the beach.  It was a fun walk.  There were a couple of surfers on the water and they came straight down the side of the hill, not down the path that we took.

Reserve

Parallel to Long Bay Beach is a large reserve.  It was so fun to walk around it.  There were trees of many kinds.  We also saw lots of birds.  We saw Eastern Rosella parrots chasing one another around the area.  I will include just a few photos of what we saw.

Long Bay Beach

Last week we visited all of the beaches to the north of Takapuna that are still considered to be part of the Auckland area.  Any further north and they are no longer part of greater Auckland.  Long Bay Beach is called that because it is really long.  And it is very pretty.  It is edged on the north and south by large volcanic cliffs.  Inland of the beach is a reserve.  

This is at the north end of the beach.  We were not able to go any further north as there was a rive that fed into the bay.  We tried to find a place to cross but were not able to.  Maybe at a differnt time of the day and the tidal schedule we could do so. 

This is at the south end of the beach.  Notice the layers of rock.

This is looking back at the north end of the beach.