December 31st to January 4th - Happy New Year and Road Trips - Part Two

Part One of the December 31st to January 4th Blog dealt with big city touring. Well as big as big can be in a small country like New Zealand. Cities are not our forte - our countryside is, and it was time to treat the family to some of NZ's natural delights.

January 3rd in the morning was spent visiting friends and family. We were keeping an eye on Weather Apps as to where it would at least not rain.  In the end we decided to drive up North again, but over to the West Coast and to the Waiuku area of New Zealand. Our first stop was at the lookout point for NZ's largest steel mill - which you may think is in conflict to seeing natural delights. However an interesting point with this mill, is that even though 2 chimneys are prolific smokers, the mill is surrounded by 420 hectares (1,038 acres) of a natural green belt (which is enforced). So it isn't such a blight on the environment and surrounds.

From there we decided to proceed to Glenbrook Beach - which I am sure I had never seen before, but George assured my crumbling brain cells that I had  All was good and well...

 Until we discovered the car keys had been locked in the boot of our locked car. The only consolation after a 2 1/2 hour wait for help to arrive, was when the technician advised us that VW's are one of the hardest vehicles to force entry into. Yes that is good, but not what we wanted to hear on this particular day

Notice that blue sky showed up after he arrived For the 2 1/2 hours preceding it was grey and wet - but fortunately not cold, just wet!

After that little misadventure we made our way to our original destination of Karioitahi Beach, a wild and wonderful black sand West Coast beach