Beaches can be full of surprises

This Side Up

John Howell
Posted 2/17/15

It only seems appropriate to conclude this series about my visit to New Zealand with a story about two beaches.

New Zealand has many beaches and I saw a few. One of the most memorable, because of …

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Beaches can be full of surprises

This Side Up

Posted

It only seems appropriate to conclude this series about my visit to New Zealand with a story about two beaches.

New Zealand has many beaches and I saw a few. One of the most memorable, because of its size and power, was on Bruce Bay on the west side of the South Island. We had been driving for about two hours, descending from the mountains and across a narrow plain up to the Tasman Sea.

When we left the inland town of Wanaka, it was a beautifully crisp day. The clouds were a sharp white against the jagged outline of the grays and blacks of the mountains. The sky was a brilliant blue. It was windy and you could see for miles. But that changed rapidly as we drove into the valleys. Clouds dipped to meet us. Vegetation closed in. Rain splattered the windshield. The air was moist. The peaks of mountains disappeared.

We went for miles seeing no further than 100 feet into lush undergrowth. Then it would open up as we came alongside fingers of a snow-fed river that fanned across a green plain dotted with horses, sheep and cattle.

All of a sudden, the road was right alongside the beach.

It caught us all by surprise. We had come to the edge. Out there, thousands of miles away, lay the coast of South America.

As if magnetized, Jack pulled the car off the road and we all got out. Nothing was said. We all knew we were going to the beach. It wasn’t much of a climb over massive boulders to reach the sand. This was not the manicured beach that makes the cover of tourist guides. It was a scene of power and turmoil. Roots and great lengths of trees, stripped of bark and bleached by the sea, stood like skeletal sentinels among piles of rounded rocks. The waves were steep, short and persistent. Lucy ran to the water’s edge and stood as close as she dared before the sweeping waters disappeared into the sand. Eddie scouted among the ocean detritus.

It was easy to turn back the clock and imagine the first visitors, who came to the islands from Polynesia, being swept ashore and wondering what they would find on this rugged land. Nor was it difficult to envision a square-rigger clawing the coast north with the hope of finding a harbor.

We walked and talked but the wind blew our words away. Then we headed back toward the car. Eddie found an oval rock and sent it skipping across a log protruding from the sand. Jack picked up a rock and aimed for another log down the beach. He missed. Eddie fired. He missed. I tried my luck and missed, too. Soon all three of us were armed and throwing. We took turns, cheering when we scored a hit.

Lucy and Jen stayed clear of the range. Soon after, we piled back in the car and continued the drive to Franz Josef, but the wildness of that beach left an indelible feel for the remoteness of this country, often the last stop before Antarctica.

It was also in stark contrast to another beach that we visited the day before we got to Auckland to take our respective flights home. Jack, Jen and the grandchildren off to Hong Kong while I caught a later flight to San Francisco and a connection to Boston.

David Hall, host of the bed and breakfast where we were staying at Whitianga and the man who planned our tour, recommended three beaches, Cook’s Beach, Cathedral Cove and Hot Beach.

“I’ve got it timed perfectly, the tide will be out at 4:30,” said David as we discussed the day’s activities over granola and yogurt. His plan called for us to head up into the hills that morning, stopping at a farm renowned for its manukah honey and then resuming our upward drive into the forest to see trees that were more than 400 years old and visiting a pool at the base of a waterfall before heading out of the hills and to beaches for the afternoon.

But why was the tide so important?

I didn’t have to ask.

“That’s when you want to be at the hot beach,” said David. He explained that would be the best time to find sections of the beach heated by geothermal activity.

“Wiggle your toes in the sand,” he said, “you’ll feel it and then dig down.”

David had thought of everything He provided two shovels and a map showing us where to find the hot beach. With the shovels we were to dig pits that would fill naturally with water for our own beachside hot tubs.

We were all captivated by the image of lying back in our pools on a remote beach and sparkling views of offshore islands against a backdrop of turquoise waters.

Just to be sure we wouldn’t miss the “best spot,” David told us to watch for a large rock off shore and the sand was hottest between it and a shoreline point.

We found the honey stand off a winding single-lane dirt road. Two dogs greeted us, but that was it. Inside a shed, jars of honey lined a shelf. They were marked with prices that varied according to size and whether the honey was “activated.” The activated manukah, believed to have additional healing powers, was almost velvet in color. The regular, which is also espoused for its medicinal qualities, was a light brown and less expensive. We picked out what we wanted; leaving the correct change in a tin that contained a couple of hundred dollars. New Zealanders are a trusting lot.

As we left, the dogs turned and wandered up a path to a barn.

We continued up the mountain road and found the giant trees and the Walau Falls.

We were saving the hot beach for the end of the day, but then we wanted to time it for the tide, too.

We stopped at a vineyard that served nice lunch and then headed for Cathedral Cove. This is a popular spot. About a mile from the cove there was a giant parking lot with bus service. We took our chances and it’s a good thing we did. The road ended on a promontory with lookouts with telescopes and filled with people. Miraculously, Jack found a parking space. This was the head of the trail to the cove, a 45-minute trek.

We looked at the time. If we were to make the hot beach, we couldn’t do the cove.

The spirit of the impending adventure had the kids buzzing. Jen had the maps, directing where Jack needed to turn. It was hardly needed, as we found signs.

Finding a parking place was somewhat more challenging. We had encountered civilization. We paid $2 to park and opened the rear hatch to retrieve the shovels.

Surprisingly, the beach looked empty. Maybe we had the hot sands to ourselves.

Eddie ran ahead with a shovel.

Sure enough, there in the distance was the offshore rock David said we should watch for. As we approached, a mob materialized. There had to be at least a couple of hundred people. It was an extraordinary scene. People of all ages and description had dug themselves into the beach. They sat and lay in pools and yelled in a chorus of excitement when incoming waves swamped their sandy fortifications and sent chilling waters into their baths. Jack, Lucy and Eddie set to work digging. I scouted around finding some stretches of the beach vacant. It was just too hot, steaming.

We dug alongside complete strangers, then wallowed in the warming waters before the rising tide washed everything away. No question we could all use a bit of that now.

In contrast to that beach on Bruce Bay, this was welcoming, friendly, a place to be with people. New Zealand is like that. In many respects it has a new, unspoiled and untamed feel and then, like that hot beach and the honey stand, there’s a sense of innocent inclusion that makes you belong.

The next day, Jack, Jen and the grandchildren were off to Hong Kong. I caught a later flight to San Francisco and then a connection to Boston.

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