September 7

Today I've decided to snoop around a bit as the sun is out. Checking out what the Piha Beachstay is really about. This place markets itself as being "eco" so I tried to figure out how close to the truth it really is. Anything IS better then NOTHING but still there has to be some cut off point. SO the things that make it eco. For starters the thing I noticed right off the bat was the architecture. The entire roof pitches to the front of the house, all of the rain that hits the roof goes into gutters, the gutters go into a storage tank. Ok so the place collects rain water, always a big plus especially with the amount of rain we've been getting. Apparently Geoff built this place and the entire house uses only collected rain water.

The way the house is built also takes advantage of the sun's orientation. In the winter the sun sits lower and shines directly into the house passively heating. In the summer the sun is higher and does not shine into the house passively cooling. They also seem to take advantage of the cool breezes and relatively bug free days and have windows and doors open keeping things very well circulated.

The Beachstay also has close ties with the Waitakere Regional Council which provides recycling opprotunities as well as provides free native plants. The entire Piha community is very big on conservation efforts. The community is highly motivated to remove invasive plants and replace them with native species. Geoff also uses this as a chance to teach guests about the native plants and what makes the ecosystem unique. The community is also very close and very neighborly. The local hot spot is the RSA club it seems to be the community voice almost like a town hall where all the important issues take place.

All in all, Piha is a very closely knit community and is filled with very active and environmentally driven individuals. Eco-tourism has a large part in the development in this area as surfers and trampers (hikers) are the main kind of visitor. These visitors tend to leave a very small footprint and respect nature for what it is. This is all being combated by the normal sight seeing tourist, these kinds of people show far less respect for the surroundings (walking on dunes) and are ironically the ones who most get into trouble in the ocean.