Black Beach
If you look at the map of New Zealand's North Island, on the left side you'll see what looks like a knuckle pushing out into the Tasman Sea. This "knuckle" is formed by the western slopes of a huge volcano, Mt Taranaki. A look at a detailed map reveals what looks like a large eye. The eye's green iris is the national park around the volcano's caldera. The veins radiating from the iris are the many roads leading straight up Taranaki's slopes. If you're a map lover, it's a really special map to look at.
In November 2009, after buying a beautiful campervan in Auckland, my companion and I spent our first night just north of Taranaki. It rained. We had aimed for the coast, and when we hit it at Awakino, we started to look for a place to camp. We chose the lazy option and pulled up in a campground a few kilometers south, about halfway between Awakino and Mokau. We were the only customers that night and each paid ten kiwi dollars to park our van. Planning to "freedom camp" for most of our trip, we were not excited at first to be surrendering so fast to the call of paid lodgings. But, after the long drive, we were happy to have an easy evening to fine-tune our set-up. And we soon discovered that the campground was graced by one striking feature: it bordered the most beautiful black beach I had ever seen.
This page features three photos of that beach.
Smiles,
Andy
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