Our Pacific Adventure: THE COAST AT LOW TIDE

With the rain, wind, sleet and snow that we’ve been having (NOT), I decided to share a side of New Zealand that Diane at least doesn’t think is very beautiful – the variable world at low tide.

Aside from the soft sandy beaches and pictures of sunrises and sunsets, the seaside is more interesting at low tide than at any other time. There is more to see and more to do. The NZ shore line changes dramatically because we have so many inlets and coves that are separated by steep cliffs and jagged rocks. The following pictures will present several variations and hopefully demonstrate some of the variety we have seen.

This is a picture of me walking out on the beach when the tide was out. This particular beach was mostly made up of broken seashells. There were others out that morning digging muscles.

Other beaches we have walked along at low tide quickly change from pretty rippled wet sand into a mixture of sand and mud, and then into more mud than sand.

Some places we’ve seen the beach sand just seems to go on forever like there is no end. In this case you can see a small stream that flows into the sea cut its way through the sand.

One of our favorite pasttimes is to walk along the “extended” beach and look for pretty shells that no one else has found. This beach is just a mile from our home, and about ¼ mile from our office. Our office is next to the tall building on the right.

This shot is just a little to the north of the last picture. The sandy beach suddenly became bed of lava from a past volcano. That volcano is about half way between the beach and our home. The island in the background is called Rangitoto. It too is an extinct volcano.

In other places the beach gives way to what is affectionately called (by others) "the wet lands."

This is a picture we took several weeks ago on one of our adventures. It is another view of the “wetlands.” They are really nothing more than marshy swamps that provide habitat for all of the undesirable species that are valuable only to the environmentalists.

A lot of the hiking trails that are published in the brochures for tourists contain advisories that they can only be “tramped” 3 hours immediately before or after low tide. This would be one of those.

Even at low tide some of the coast line is pretty difficult to navigate. Like in this case either the rocks are difficult to maneuver or the streamlets keep it pretty wet. (We are dry-landers).

This is a picture from one of our excursions along a coast line that doesn’t exist, except during low tide. The bay comes right up to the rock cliff on the left -- except during low tide. You can just barely see Auckland City in the back ground.

Low tide or not, some places are more than just treacherous – especially for those of us that are no longer very nimble on our feet. These rocks are covered with black and green algae, and are as slippery as snot, especially when your feet are wet.

Even though this area was mostly flat, Diane had to watch every step to make sure she didn’t land on her cabooska.

Because there are so many volcanoes in and around Auckland (48 I believe), the coastal areas have a lot of rocky shelves. In this picture the sandy beach gives way to rocks when the tide recedes.

Here is another area that is impassible except during low tide. The rock formations are fascinating and beautiful, but the only time you can see them is during low tide.

I don’t want to mislead you, this rock shelf is exposed even during high tide, at which times swimmers can dive from the point into the bay. At low tide, they would only hit sand.

We’ve hiked along some sections where we had to leave the coast and walk along the adjoining streets to get to the next cove or beach area. Even then the scenery is spectacular. This picture is of such a place within a 20 minute walk of our home. The town in the back ground is called Milford. I run/walk past this every morning during my workout.

We’ve seen several places like this one during our hikes. Some of them we have been successful in climbing over and continuing on, others we’ve just decided it was more trouble than it was worth and turned around. Either way, the coast provides beautiful landscapes and fun pictures.

I wanted to include in this “low-tide” report a couple of close up pictures. I mentioned the wetlands. This is a picture of some Mangrove seedlings on the water’s edge of a wetland we saw recently.

Again, I already mentioned that some beaches were made up of mostly broken seashells. Other beaches are mostly sand with pockets of shells accumulated here or there. On one beach we were at recently, we found three of four different caches within a few hundred yard of each other. Interestingly, each one was made up of completely different types of shells.