I was rather pleased today to wake up and find the weather was in keeping with the weather forecast because today I was paying not insignificant amounts of money to go kayaking to Cathedral Cove. So I packed a second pair of clothes and a towel in my car and headed off to Hahei where the kayaks awaited.
I arrived at the beach and was introduced to the New Zealander guide and the two fellow Brits who would be joining us and we soon set off across the water towards Motueka Island. This was only a few kilometres but when you are in a kayak in open water getting anywhere seems to take ages. I get the impression that this is due to there being no close by landmarks so as you move through the water the changing parallax of the distant trees, cliffs and other objects becomes awfully laboured, like looking into the distance from a moving train for example. Maybe we were actually just slow, but whatever the reason kayaking over a large expanse of water always feels like an awful lot of effort for not much return. Perhaps travelling near the speed of light under your own steam feels like this, I thought. Anyway the tour guide was telling us about the marine reserve that was set up in the area that bans fishing within its boundaries. Since it was set up in 1993 the marine life has increased “sixteen hundred percent” as the he put it, so there is now sixteen times more marine life in the area than before, pretty good going. He also told us that a Maori chief who settled the area saw Motueka Island, our destination, and claimed it looked a body part of his and that we had to guess what he said it was. The island had a central rounded peak with two rounded valleys that ended in two other peaks that were lower than the central one. The reason he claimed the island to look like a part of him and get his tribe to agree on the matter is because that gave him the jurisdiction to ascend the feature and claim all the land he could see from it for himself, simple as. As we neared the island all three of us had no idea what the feature resembled, so begrudgingly the tour guide told us that he claimed it to look like his nose. He obviously had imagination!
We circumnavigated the island and saw seals lounging blithely on some pretty jagged rocks. They all glanced up briefly to inspect the newcomers and then dropped their heads down again as if we weren’t worth the effort. After negotiating a natural sea tunnel we made a beeline for Cathedral Cove. En route there was a solitary penguin, solitary not being its species name but rather because the vast majority of its species would be hanging around the south of the South Island at this time of year, poor (or just retarded) penguin.
Cathedral cove, it turns out, not only contains one tourist attraction, but two, the most photographed rock in New Zealand (apparently) lies in the cove too. This is Sail rock, which does actually resemble a sail. It is a stack with a vertical side and a slightly sloping side and the base is the narrowest point of the whole structure like the mast of a ship. The cove is named after a naturally formed cave which has the profile of a gothic cathedral window, which I think it pretty accurate description too. Not that there's a competition or that nomenclature even matters but so far it’s two-nil to the Europeans on realistic natural feature name resemblances. Although if I had the chance of gaining all the land I could see from a point then I would claim any salient feature to look like anything of mine, left foot, index finger, gall bladder etc, even if it was just an amorphous pile of rocks.
We stayed in the cove for a while and had biscuits and hot drinks prepared for us whilst we inspected the cave. Access through the cave was banned because recently some rocks had fallen from the ceiling and, in an unexpected health and safety spectacle, bright yellow warning signs and yellow rope was strung across both entrances. Other unexpected news was when I heard they are going to put concrete on the ceiling of this natural wonder to avoid further rock falls from happening, but I suppose there’s not much else that they can do.
We soon departed Cathedral Cove and rounded the headland into Stingray Bay, so named because of the large amounts of stingrays, of Steve Irwin infamy, that frequent the bay. Thankfully they still frequent the bay and they can be seen against the white sandy floor moving in no particular hurry from one random bit of sand to another. They first appeared as slow moving dark blobs barely discernable from small rocks but as the water cleared and sharp outlines and colours became discernable their form became obvious; they were diamond (square) in shape with a tail from one corner. They made absolutely no threatening manoeuvres or actions but just serenely swam and minded their own business as they passed under the kayaks. So why anyone would want go out of their way to kill these creatures in the aftermath of Steve Irwin’s death I really can’t understand.
The next bay had another unimaginative but factually accurate name; Gemstone Bay. At one time gemstones were discovered here in what must have been noticeably larger numbers than on a normal beach. But alas, the chances of finding any here now are much diminished as humans have scoured the area pretty much clean of them. What most distinguished this bay now was the self guided snorkelling tour. This involved a series of ropes which connected several floating buoys adorned with local wildlife information boards so snorkelers would know what wildlife they were seeing around them. I looked for a board that said ‘Great White Shark’, because they do live in these waters and have mauled eleven people, possibly snorkellers, to death around New Zealand so far, but there was no information on them at all. After this we headed back to the beach at Hahei where the trip was over but at least I didn’t have to sit in several centimetres of water any more, yippee.
I spent the rest of the day just meandering around the area, I went to the rope swing put up by a local fireman because the kids would put rope swings up any way and he decided he could tie a safer rope swing than they could. I also went to Cooks beach where the road signs directing me towards the town centre ceased when I reached a place with three shops next to the road, I never did find the town centre. After this is retired to the backpackers in Whitianga for the evening.
The next day, today, would be an unplanned day of many beaches as I drove from Whitianga to Karangahake. My first unplanned stop was in a place called Tairua which had an unusually high and pointy hill on its seafront so without hesitation I took the next left and aimed my car towards it. The bottom two thirds of the hill was a big housing estate demonstrating the aesthetics of houses pretty much anywhere in New Zealand despite being in such an unusual and beautiful location. I wound my way through here and found a car park from where I began my perambulation to the summit. The views from the summit were amazingly spectacular, the sea was the pale blue you see often on postcards and views over the mountains in the other direction were available in all their verdant splendour, this was a very pleasant place to be. I was jealous of all the locals who could stroll up here before breakfast every morning and still be on time for work. I came across a notice board once more with the geological time scratched off, I’m very intrigued to know who does this.
Once I was on the road again I decided to head to Opoutere beach. The beach path intersects a pine woodland and emerges on the beach which, as I discovered to my delight, was empty apart from a fisherman who was too far away to be of any bother to me. This was such a wonderful place that I had no choice other than to take my book, Corrupted Science, and read in the warm sun and gentle cooling breeze for an hour or so, someone had to do it. I was on the section of religious corruption in science and it turns out the much trumped religion-science war isn’t happening as the media often portrays. The vast majority of people in both groups just want to get on with what they’re doing and let everyone else get on with their lives and work but there are a few who don’t. Some of them have lots of political power, especially in the US and lots of right-winged organizations around the world, and it’s very scary. The chapter ended with stories of how creationists who are also scientists, who do exist and conduct proper science, have come a cropper of corruption and been discredited when they tried to mix their religion with science, fools. But as all good things must come to an end, my time on the beach had to end and to the car I headed.
Later on in the day I got my first view of a live weta, these are large insects, some as big as my hand, and although they are harmless they can bite. I came across the wetas whilst walking into a mine entrance and shone my light at the wall next to me to find a fist sized insect about thirty centimetres from my face. One thing I can say is that they aren’t a pretty sight at any distance, let alone close up. I retreated from the mine after I stared at them for a bit and took pictures because as far as I knew they jump towards movement or light sources like my head torch and this I didn’t want to happen.
I drove down the windiest road in the whole world and arrived in Waihi where there is a huge Cornish engine house and Marth Quarry which is a gold quarry that is more than a trifle big. You shall here more on Waihi in my next post, for now I headed off to The Golden Owl in Karangahake for a good nights rest.
No comments:
Post a Comment