3rd part of Oneroa

It's now the middle of the afternoon and Jeanne and I have been either traveling to get here, or wandering on the beach, or climbing over the cliff from the northern part of Oneroa to this southern part for several hours. We're starting to drag a bit. Spotting this little store was the answer to recharging our batteries. 

What we need is a rejuvenating beverage FULL of caffeine. A couple of diet Cokes later, we walked back across the road to the park. 

I'd guess the temperature is about 75 and there is just enough of a breeze.

Here is another arch. If the boys were here, they'd have to crawl under it. I had enough crawling in the cave and that looks too low for me anyway.

A dinner plate-sized jellyfish

Quite a few seagulls are nesting. They didn't seem upset by our presence at all. 

After we got back from our first trip out here, I was surfing Youtube and came across a video by some guy, young and spry enough to climb to a hidden portion of these rocks and discover an opening or tunnel through to the other side. I vowed I'd try to locate it when we returned. Well, there it is. To get right up to it, I'd have to splash through some water, and climb up and over some rocks that don't appear in this picture. I'm holding my camera over them while I stand on tiptoe. 
Not gonna happen. Too old, stiff, chubby, etc. 

But at least I found it. I walked around to the other side but could not approach the opening at all. A person might have to get to it by coming from the sea side of the rocks. Beyond my abilities. 

We spent the last bit of our day at the beach quietly strolling through the sandy paths between the outcroppings of lava. 

One thing I noticed and appreciated was the number of benches that had been placed around the park and beach. Most of them were labeled by the donor. It must have been a project undertaken at some point. We made use of several of them.

The best of days has to end and we finally called it quits. The 50-sun block we had slathered on this morning had worked. We spent 5 or 6 hours in the sun but felt no sign of overexposure. That's good stuff. 

We caught a bus back to the ferry terminal and had to wait only about 15 minutes for one to arrive. This is a video I took while standing on the pier. You'll see Rangitoto out there, a bit of Auckland in the distance, and our ferry approaching. You'll see people heading down the ramp to get into line. Jeanne and I joined them just before the ferry arrived. 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNrld_R0qvE&feature=youtu.be

Here it is. Not much of a crowd returning yet. I'd guess that between 6 and 8 pm it'll get nutsy again. We'll be home and relaxing by that time. 

I don't normally like to travel on the top deck of a ferry. If it's rough, you get a lot more motion up there. The other reason is that these ferries fly. It's way too windy up here to be comfortable. I'm surprised there are so many people up here way tougher than I am.

The view from the top deck. No mystery ships chasing us this time.  I didn't really think the Dread Pirate Roberts* operated in these waters anyway.      

* The Princess Bride came out in 1987 when Allie was young and became an instant classic for us. I've made a couple of references to it in these three Oneroa posts. If you haven't seen it somehow or you haven't for a long time, I urge you to find it. Amiri and Arram resisted it at first, when we told them we had an 'old movie' for them to watch, but fell hard under it's spell before very long. Now we own it and it gets watched regularly. Peter Falk is wonderful and Billy Crystal beyond words.     -djf