Travelogue

Muriwai Beach LookoutThe next, and final stop, of our campervan adventure was Muriwai Beach and its famous gannet colony.

Although the distance from Piha to Muriwai was probably only about 10 miles as the crow flies (or in this case, gannet), the rugged terrain of the Waitākere Ranges and steep coastal cliffs make a direct beachfront road impossible.

Instead we had to go back up the steep, windy Piha Road, across the Scenic West Coast Road, and then down Muriwai Road.

Tour bus joins us at Muriwai Beach LookoutLike Piha Beach, Muriwai Beach was another “wild” Tasman coast beach, with huge surf, black sand, and rugged cliffs, but instead of an iconic rock being the highlight, Murawai was all about the gannets, specifically its colony of 1,200 pairs

We got our first glimpse of Murawei Beach from a scenic roadside lookout along Waiteo Road. No gannets yet, just black sand and crashing waves. Very pretty.

We had to take a photo quickly though because it wasn't long before a large tour bus pulled behind us and about 30 excited tourists jumped out and started doing social media poses in front of our shot.

Quick shot before the next tour busI had to remember that even though it seemed like we were in a wild, remote part of the island, we were only a 40-minute drive from Auckland.

We waited for a while after the tour bus left before going down to the Upper Viewing Platform, where we got our first view of the entire gannet colony atop the massive cliffs at Otakamiro Point.

Wow! What a breathtaking sight!

Muriwai CliffsThese cliffs would be worth a visit even when not covered in gannets. The fluffy, wavy “megapillow” lava formations at their base are so beautiful they seem unreal. This is what happens when an underwater volcano (17 million years ago) erupted deep underwater and cooled immediately upon contacting cold seawater. These formations are considered a world-class geological feature in their own right.

Just offshore are the Motutara and Oaia islands, two sheer-sided sea stacks rising out of the surf. We had to look closely to see that they too had a gannet colony on top, although much smaller than that on Otakamiro Point.

Muriwai CliffsThese two small islands were the feeder colonies for Muriwai and the only gannet colonies in the area before 1979 when overcrowding forced many of the birds to leave their island homes and colonize the mainland cliffs at Otakamiro Point, making it one of only three mainland colonies in New Zealand.

Gannets usually prefer islands because of the lack of predators, like ferrets and feral cats. However, the height and steepness of Otakamiro Point practically make it an island in terms of accessibility by predators.

Honeycomb-like pattern of nestsThat’s what makes this place so special and unique - the ability to see them up close and personal (which we would later from the Lower Platform) rather than afar from a boat.

From the Upper Viewing Platform, we got a dramatic overall view of the entire colony, and the one on Motutara Island as well.

What was particularly striking from above was the beautiful, honeycomb-like pattern across the entire cliff face, formed by the precise placement of nesting sites when the gannets returned in August.

Best real estate in townEvery year from August to March, these clifftops are transformed into a dense city of birds with about 1,200 pairs, crowded together with barely an inch to spare.

But these birds have figured it out.

Because gannet colonies are so crowded, they have evolved a way to prevent fighting while still maximizing their nesting area. When a gannet sits on its nest, it reaches out its neck and beak in every direction to make sure it can’t reach its neighbor. It’s called “peck distance," and anything within that peck distance is their territory.

Urban living on pizza-size nestsThe result is a pattern of tiny pizza-size nests, where every nest is about 80 to 100 cm (31.5 to 39.5 in) apart, rather small for a bird with a 6-foot wing span.

This distance is slightly more than the combined length of two necks and beaks, providing a safety buffer and preventing unnecessary, energy-wasting squabbles. Not an inch of space is wasted.

The Upper Viewing Platform is also a great place to watch gannets in flight.

Gannet in flightThe prevailing south-westerly winds hit the cliff face and create powerful updrafts, so all these large birds need to do is shuffle to the edge of the cliff, wait for a gust, and simply tip forward into the air. Voila, flight!

Their return is not quite as graceful though, as their landing pad is the size of a pizza surrounded by cranky neighbors ready to peck at them if they don’t perfectly “stick” it.

As the gannet arrives back at the cliffs, it circles the colony and locks his eyes on his specific nest. As it gets closer, it tilts its long wings to catch the wind, and hovers for a moment while calculating his trajectory.

"Sticking" the landingIt then transforms its body into a sort of air brake, fanning out its tail feathers, splaying its large webbed feet forward to create maximum drag, and angling its 6-feet wings vertically to act as an air brake.

It has to position itself perfectly just above the nest, because it must drop down vertically so it won’t hit its neighbor, who will react quite swiftly and aggressively if his “airspace” is invaded.

It’s a bit like a masterly execution of a “controlled crash.”

Sky-pointingBut it ain’t over yet, as the incoming mate must “authenticate” itself to its mate, which is done with a fencing ritual (also known as the mutual greeting ceremony).

The ritual begins with “sky-pointing,” where both birds stretch their necks to the sky, beaks pointed vertically.

Next comes the fencing part, where the birds bring their heads down, stand breast-to-breast, and clatter their long pale-blue beaks together like wooden swords.

Fencing RitualWhile their beaks remain in contact, they move in a synchronized rhythm, swaying their heads from side to side.

The grand finale is mutual preening, where the birds nibble and preen the feathers on each other’s heads and necks, a sign of deep trust.

This fencing ritual helps to strengthen their life-long pair bond and survive the grueling task of raising a chick - something I can relate to. It was quite beautiful and touching to watch.

Mutual preeningWe would return to the Upper Viewing Platform this evening during golden hour, but for now we continued down the path as it winded around the cliff edge to the Lower Platform, where we got a much better closeup and intimate view of these intriguing birds, often from just a few feet away.

Up close, we could see that they are quite beautiful, although no bird will ever take the place that Icelandic puffins hold in my heart.

Pair bondingBut they definitely are more elegant, with their brilliant white feathers, golden-yellow plumage on their head and neck, and deep black along the edge of their wings.

They have very interesting faces as well, with a long pale blue-gray beak, and what looks like Egyptian eye liner around their pale blue eyes.

Down on the Lower Viewing Platform, we could see just how busy and chaotic the colony is. By December, the quiet, disciplined egg “incubation” phase has largely transitioned into the high-energy "nursery" phase, as this is the peak month for chicks to be growing rapidly.

Busy, chaotic placeEgg hatching usually peaks in mid-November. However, since the colony is asynchronous, meaning the birds don't all lay their eggs at exactly the same time, it can occur as early as October or as late as January.

So being here in December had the major advantage of being able to observe both these stages of gannet parenting, from incubating the egg to tending to tiny, newly hatched chicks.

We were still able to see a few pairs in the incubation phase, where they took turns sitting on the nest for several days while their partner went out to sea hunting for food. Since gannets don’t have a “brood patch” (a featherless area of skin on their belly) like many other birds do, they keep their egg warm by wrapping their warm, webbed feet around the egg and resting their body on top.

Incubation PhaseThe nests themselves look like miniature volcanoes made of kelp, grass, and guano. The guano acts as mortar, cementing the grass and kelp into a rock-hard structure. The center of the mound has a shallow depression where the single, pale-blue egg sits - like on a tiny throne.

Because of the tight real estate, each mound is only 12 inches across, just large enough to support a parent and one chick.

When the chick hatches, after 44 days of incubation, it is blind and featherless, looking more like a tiny dinosaur than the big beautiful bird he would become.

Little ugly dinosaur phaseMost of the pairs that we saw were already in the “nursery” phase, and their hatched chicks had already transformed from ugly little dinosaurs into cute little fluffy “snowballs” covered in thick white down.

Since the parents lay only one egg per season, they are fiercely protective. The parent must ensure the chick stays exactly on its nesting mound, because if it wanders even a few inches into a neighbor’s nest area, it will be attacked.

Cute little snowball phaseDuring the nursery phase, both parents take turns flying out to sea to hunt for food for their chicks. They eat things like anchovies and then regurgitate the semi-digested fish into the chicks mouths. We actually watched a young chick reach deep inside its parent’s throat to retrieve his “fish soup.”

This feeding process is so efficient that by 10 weeks the chick actually weighs more than its parents. The chick would need this extra fat for its upcoming 2,000 km migration to Australia.

The growing chick requires so much food, that one parent is almost always away hunting at sea. It’s hard to satisfy their growing appetites, and are often seen pecking at their parent’s beak, begging them to regurgitate more food for them to eat.

Lunch timeDecember is arguably the best time for photography because the colony is utter chaos with so much going on at once. We had observed a lot of different behaviors - incubating the egg, protecting and feeding the newborn chick, flight into and out of the colony, and the fencing ritual, but there were a few things going on that we didn’t understand until I got home and used our photos to do some research.

One of these behaviors, which was not that uncommon, was seeing three gannets tangled together in a noisy squabble. It was hard to tell where one gannet ended and the next one started.

3 bird squabbleIt’s quite the neighborhood drama, mostly the result of their extremely close nesting sites, and one of them crossing into the personal space of its neighbor, intentional or not.

Because gannets have serrated, dagger-like beaks and powerful neck muscles, a three-way fight is a violent, noisy spectacle, often triggering a chain reaction in the colony where everyone starts jabbing at whoever is close by.

Unlike birds that just peck and retreat, gannets grab each other by the beak and hold on, often forming a daisy chain where Bird A grips the beak of Bird B, while Bird C is clamped onto the back of Bird A’s neck.

Mating Part 1We never saw one of these fights end. I think they go on for a pretty long time, eventually stopping when they just get too exhausted, or forget why they were fighting in the first place.

There was one more gannet activity that we observed, about which Herb and I came to different opinions as to its purpose.

We watched as one bird firmly grasped the back of the head of another gannet, right where the beautiful golden-yellow plumage is, and pulled on it with its beak. It didn’t look pleasant, but the one being pulled on remained still and had no real reaction.

Mating Part 2 - BalancingTo me, it looked like a form of aggression and bullying, but to Herb it looked like mating. Of course it did.

As we continued to watch, the head pulling bird climbed up on the back of the other bird and placed his feet on her back and extended his wings, as if to maintain balance for some reason. He was still holding on to her head with its beak.

That only lasted for a few seconds before the male dismounted and they did their pair-bonding fencing ritual, clattering their beaks together and stretching their necks towards the sky.
Okay, Herb was right. This was their mating ritual.

Post-coital snuggleI tried defending my naivety with the question of why they would possibly be mating in December when all the other pairs were already nursing their chicks.

Just for fun? He suggested.

I hate to admit it, but once again he wasn’t completely wrong, although that was not the main reason you see this activity in December.

The most common reason for late-season mating is that the pair has lost their first egg in November and is trying for a “replacement egg.”

Good luck in FebruaryThe second reason (Herb’s explanation) is that gannets, who are monogamous and mate for life, are constantly trying to reinforce their partnership and strengthen their “pair bond,” and this is a good (and fun) way to do so.

Wow! I think we had pretty much seen it all.

Too bad we wouldn’t be here in February though for the final and most dramatic phase of life as a gannet chick, when they would begin their migration to Australia. Having never flown before, they would take the ultimate leap of faith, walking to the edge of the Otakamiro Point cliffs and simply throwing themselves off and hoping for the best.

Just think what guts this takes. They have never flown before, their parents aren’t coming with them, and they will be completely on their own for an 8 to 14 day, 1,740-mile solo journey to Australia, not returning to Muriwai for several years.

Off to find the Muriwai GrottoIt is considered one of the most remarkable journeys in the animal kingdom.

The next morning before leaving Muriwai to head back to Auckland to return our campervan, we parked in the lot at the very southern end of the beach, and set out to find the Muriwai Grotto.

The grotto is only safely reached at low tide, which it certainly looked like it was. I asked a surfer just to make sure, because you don’t want to mess around with the West Coast’s surf.

The wind was whipping as it so often does here. That’s why the gannets live here.

I had become so engrossed with the lives of gannets yesterday that I could picture them standing at the edge of the cliff above us and tipping into an updraft to get dinner for its family.

Muriwai GrottoWe walked south along the rocks from the main beach area and found the grotto hidden behind the first headland.

The entrance is a large, jagged opening in dark volcanic rock. This is the beautiful “megapillow” lava we had admired when looking down at the base of the cliffs from the Upper Viewing Platform yesterday.

These are considered some of the best-preserved and most significant examples of this phenomenon in the world, gaining international recognition as an IUGS Geological Heritage Site.

Muriwai GrottoThe grotto was formed over thousands of years, by the constant pounding of the Tasman Sea. The “pillows” have cracks in them that formed when they cooled 17 million years ago. As waves crashed over the cliffs, air got trapped in those tiny cracks. When the waves retreated the compressed air expanded explosively, popping out chucks of rock.

So, why here? Location, Location, Location. The rock at this grotto’s location was slightly more fractured and positioned at a specific angle to the waves, so the sea was able to eat away at it faster than at other places.

As soon as we entered the cave, the temperature dropped a few degrees, although we were now protected from those driving winds. The ceiling, which was probably only about 10-feet above, was made of lava pillows.

BlokartingThe lower part of the wall was a beautiful purple color, painted by a natural chemical reaction. The volcanic rock is full of iron, so when the salt spray and oxygen hit it, the iron “rusts,” turning the surface into a beautiful plum-like, purple. Essentially the dark grey rock is being painted by the Tasman Sea.

Well, that was certainly worth the stop.

On our way back to the car, we got to see a group of beginners getting a “blokarting” lesson. Blokarting is essentially “land sailing,” using a three-wheeled cart powered by a sail. It was invented in Auckland in 1999 and has since become a global cult sport.

BlokartingHowever, I’m going to have to defend my Hudson River roots and say that people have been “ice yachting” on the Hudson River since the 1800s - very similar to blokarting except it’s done on ice (with blades on the bottom of the kart) rather than on hard sand (with wheels on the bottom).

Muriwai Beach with its hard sand and strong winds is considered one of the best places in the world to try it.

It looked pretty fun, but scary as well.

Okay, time to return the campervan.