On 20 November Cllr Penny Hulse, chair of the Auckland Council Environment and Community Committee announced publicly that Kitekite Track will reopen before Christmas. Many will have applauded that move, with the opportunity to get back into the forested part of the Waitakere Ranges and the boost to local businesses. But there is a downside [ Read More ]
The Piha café has been granted extended hours enabling it to stay open till 10 pm. The permission was granted on a non-notified basis, meaning that there was no opportunity for anyone to submit. The decision not to notify and to grant the extended hours were made by Commissioner Leigh McGregor and her report can be read here [ Read More ]
Phil Vine in the Herald on coastal erosion and accretion at Awhitu, Piha and Muriwai. quotes Mischa and Steve Davis, Jim Dahm and others. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11195493
Around a thousand gathered on Piha Beach on 23 November in the Banners on the Beach protest against deep sea oil drilling. When the crowd lined up facing out to the Tasman where the Greenpeace protest boat Vega was confronting Anadarko’s exploration ship Noble Bob Douglas, the line stretched from Pakiti Rock to Lion Rock [ Read More ]
Plan Change 36 was proposed by Waitakere City Council to liberalise economic activities in the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area. It came on the back of the fight over the Piha Café, which was a “non-complying” activity under the District Plan, which is the most discouraging activity status a proposal can face.  WCC wanted to make [ Read More ]
The New Zealand Herald on Saturday June 1 announced that CNN had listed neighbouring beach Karekare at number 38 in its Top 100 Best Beaches in the World on its summer travel website. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10887739 Those assembling the list described Karekare as “a grandiose sweep of black sand [that] stretches before bush-clad hills”. It then went [ Read More ]
The photo might be a bit cheesy, but this heart-warming story of the Piha Bowling Club ladies, and a few lads, stepping in to capture a boy in a Toyota doing wheelies in the Domain, will please a lot of us who get sick of seeing the turf being ripped up. http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/western-leader/8398705/Citizens-arrest-teen Of concern was the report [ Read More ]
While swimming out the back some years ago I was joined by some Maui’s dolphins. An unforgettable experience if a little scary at the time. They say they are small but a lot around a single swimmer got a bit lonely. Maui’s & Hector’s dolphins are the world’s smallest and rarest dolphins. Up until the [ Read More ]
In the last few months the Auckland Council has been developing proposed new regional policies and bylaws on dogs. The Council has inherited seven sets of dog bylaws from the legacy councils, and policies from the Regional Council, and is trying to roll them into one more consistent set of rules to make it easier for the [ Read More ]
Reactions are mixed about the plethora of white concrete paths materialising around Piha – a $750,000 legacy project funded in the dying days of Waitakere City Council. Even more contentious is the gravel path that has appeared on the beachfront, parallel to the road at Little Lion Rock corner. There is even a dinky little [ Read More ]