Monday, February 15, 2010
caves in the cliffs
of a person walking out of the cave. yup. that big!
the high tide line for this beach also goes right up to the mout of
the cave. amazing how much is revealed at low tide.... and how little
you can wander at high tide!
more wonders as we walked...
out, we kept wandering. as we got around to the back side of the giant
rock islands, they revealed that they had giant arches cut out of
them. again, evey step we took down the beach revealed new treasures! :)
tidal life
muscles and giant sea snails.
rocks full of sea life...
muscles and those little "cherry" looking nuggets that bloom under
water. anyone know what they are called?? see next pic for the bloom.
wading through the tide pools...
tide pools.... the beach is only really accessible around low tide
(which we hit quite perfectly), and the rocks are covered in sea life!
love it.
mama minding the kiddie pool
on the rocks playing referee for the little ones playing around. where
the sand meets the rocks in the middle of the pic there is a pool of
water. at any given time 6 or so pups were swimming around, jumping in
and out, crawling all over each other. cutest thing ever! couldn't
stop watching them took a ton of little videos on my camera I will
post when I get back to SF.
playing to the audience
pups, but these little guys just kept sneaking up on the rocks in
front of us, and posing for the cameras.
seal pups everywhere!
that section if the beach, we realized they had come upon a whole
mess of seal pups. up on the rocks, trying to keep our distance, the
little guys were super flirty and playful... were having a blast
playong with each other, checking out the people and putting in quite
a show. we really tried to stay out of the way, but there were at
least 10-12 of them in this area (with one mom keeping her eye on
them, and barking orders every now and then), and 3 or 4 kept passing
within feet of us.
wandering, constantly taking pictures!
we found the perfect angle for a picture... 2 feet away there was
something even more stunning to be photographed. we both took a
zillion pics. as mentioned before, the light was a bit tricky for the
iPhone pics, but don't worry, i filled a memory card on my "real"
camera. just have to wait till I get home to post them.
beach reavealed... pictures don't begin to capture it!
we were both simply stunned. rolling sand dunes lead down to the
coastline littered with GIANT rock islands. the little rock in the
water off the point is probably the size of seal rock at ocean beach
in SF. there were a good number of people on the beach 50+ maybe, but
because of the sheer size, it felt deserted.
made it to the top... fork in the road, take a left.
to resist many stops along the way. we had to return in same
direction, so always a chance to stop on way back!
end of the road, dirt in born directions. took a left turn, and
followed the signs to wharariki beach. right turn would have taken us
to the edge of farewell spit (thin landmass hooking around to form the
very edge if the island).
up and over the mountains.
the boundaries of Abel tasmin park.
the little island in the distance was one of placed we explored in the
kayaks, and spent one of the nights at a campground in the bay. gun to
get a good look at the coastline from above.
it was a nice mild day, but slightly overcast with dull light... which
didn't agree with the iPhone camera so much.
getting ourselves set up for road tripping
gear (little cooler, cutting board, etc), and groceries. found auttle
park on the outside of town to make our frost road picinic lunch, and
get sorted. the day was progressing a bit slower than planned, but all
necessary stops.
finally we hit the road to journey to the top of the south island.
heather had a lead on a spectacular beach at the tip of the island,
and we were determined to make an adventure of finding it.
the driving adventure begins!
laundry and resorting our stuff for the car part of the adventure.
we arranged a duper shuttle to pick us up and take us to the car
rental place back at the airport. since we were not pressed for time,
the driver detoured up and around the hills, and gave us quite a local
tour of Nelson. a much bigger city than either of us expected. pretty
gorgeous views from the top of the hills. 180 degrees of coastline,
and 180 degrees of mountainous hills. skies were clear enough to see
back to Abel tasmin, and the mountains beyond to the north that we
were set to explore.
heather took the wheel driving out of town, and I took on co-pilot
duties. mainly comprised of repeating the mantra "stay left, stay
left", and navigating through the many roundabouts.
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