This blog is about Muriwai Beach, which is another of west coast Auckland’s beautiful beaches. Once again black and white film was used to capture the beauty of this black sandy beach and the gannet colony that nests in the rocky cliffs above. Hope you like the photos.

For this photo story a Canon EOS-IV, Canon 50mm f/1.2L lens, and Kodak T-Max 100 black and white film with a red filter were used. Spot metering was used to balance the exposure between highlights, mid-tones, and lowlights.

Muriwai Beach is about 30 miles west of Auckland (top left-hand part of the map above), with much of the land at the southern end being part of Muriwai Regional Park. From Motutara Road we had a great view of the vast expanse of beach which was popular with people to walk along or enjoy swimming amongst the waves.

Was cool to see surf board riders with wind sails speeding  across the waves. At one moment they were close to you, then within seconds they were hundreds of feet away.

As we walked from Motutara Road to the Takapu Refuge Walk, we passed a rocky outcrop that was being used by many people for surf fishing. Oaia Island can be seen near the horizon.

We continued walking up the Takapu Refuge Walk to Otakamiro Point to see the large colony of gannets that use the steeps cliffs and Motutara Island for nesting. I remember waiting patiently for a gannet to move into the lower right foreground before taking the photo.

Here’s a closer view of Motutara Island with a pair of gannets flying towards it and breaking waves surrounding it.

Towards the tip of Otakamiro Point their is a viewing platform where you can see the nesting gannets perched on a triangular rocky ledge.

To the left of Otakamiro Point you can get a beautiful view of the rugged Muriwai cliffs and Maukatia (Maori Bay). For this shot waited until the sun broke through the clouds to highlight the white cliff in the foreground.

From Otakamiro Point walked down the hill to Waitea Road to get to Maukatia. Here’s a view back towards Otakamiro Point.

Here’s a photo looking to the south of Maukatia with the waves crashing into the black sandy beach. Really like the range of shades in this photo from white (the waves), to mid-tones (the cliffs and wet sand), and to blacks (beach in the foreground).

Thanks for checking out the blogs on some of the beaches along the Auckland west coast. New Zealand is one of the most beautiful countries that my wife and I have visited. We plan to visit New Zealand again in the near future.