Several kilometers of driving a heart-stopping windy narrow road gets you to the Tasman Sea beach town of Piha where the main and almost only attraction is the gorgeous black sand beach. As you approach, the precarious road offers a supreme lookout from the high cliffs. 
  
Waves splash up an extremely broad and flat beach, leaving reflections in the dark wet sand of the huge Piha Lion Rock that pops out of the middle of the beach. 

  
Lots of brave beachers climbed up, we peeked at the steep crude stairs chiseled in the rock and said “no way”.