Having said goodbye to Gillian in the morning we embark on our first NZ camping trip in the afternoon. We head to the surf beach and village of Piha with our £9 second-hand 4 man  tent. Piha is the other side of the Waitakere mountain range from Auckland and about an hour drive from St Heliers.

We checked into a very laid-back camp site with only the very basic of conveniences. For someone who is familiar with British beach resorts and camp sites, Piha is a very different. It is stunningly beautiful with very little commercial development. Its famed surf break washes onto volcanic sand which in-turn backs on dunes and  a mountain range covered in native bush.

A recurring theme is that leisure activity is not characterised by someone trying to fleece you. Parking is free, the camp site is cheap as chips and the only commercial outlets are quiet chip shop (more of a shack than a shop) and a small shop across the road from the camp site where you can also get a coffee (but it is not really a cafe – there is no cafe, an obvious sign that there is no commercial intent at all in this place).

Piha is famous for its surf with 4m swells frequently seen. Today was classed as a ‘flat day’ (1/2 m of surf) so it was OK for Ellie and Cari to go ‘body boarding’. Wet suites are still to arrive (their being shipped with some other stuff from home) so 20 mins is the most they can stay in the sea which is chilly.

In the evening we become guest members of the Piha Crown Green Bowling Club (the only bar / meal outlet in the village) and, in the company of two ‘locals’ originally from Llwynypia and somewhere on Anglesey, we have a very pleasant evening before crashing in our tent (which takes a while to find as its very dark)

In the morning some more body boarding before heading to the nearby beach Kare Kare where the film The Pianist was filmed before heading back to Auckland.