Flying kites at Karaka Bay Beach

Boy is it cold today. We had a trip to the beach planned despite the big freeze that seems to have come over the city this morning.

The girls begged so we decided to go to one of my favourite places in Auckland, Karaka Bay Beach. I love this beach.

It has a huge place in history being one of the places where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840.

You drive down what appears to be a dead end street and walk down a tiny and very steep path to one of the biggest surprises Auckland has to offer .

There is an incredible community down here. Baches built by pushing wheelbarrows of building materials down the steep slope teeter against the cliff. Next door, an enormous architect designed home was barged and helicoptered in piece by piece. That one was recently up for sale but apparently the potential new owner didn't like the idea of parking his merc so far away. At one end of the beach is the most beautiful pohutakawa tree. A friend who lives down there told us it was about 500 years old (she said that one saw Rangitoto erupt). Branches regularly fall off the tree in storms. She was a surgeon in a former life and now loves the art of bonsai. She took one of the fallen branches and made cuttings several years ago. Of the 8 cuttings she took, one survived and she put it in a pot to train it to be a bonsai. The tree cutting didn't want to be a bonsaii for long so she planted it on her lawn and is training the branches out low and wide so she can climb it to read books in the sun when she is old. What a fabulous plan.