Tuesday 27 August 2013

Exploring the North Shore

  
 


Good fun tootling around the north shore today with the aim of checking out three things that seemed worth checking out.

First was the lighthouse at Kiluea point. Well, it's a lighthouse, on a point, and there you go.  It's been restored for its 100th birthday this year, and the area around it is beautiful, with plenty of birdlife.

Next was "Secret Beach" - which is so secret that google maps clearly labels the dirt access road to it as "secret beach access road".  Great wooded trail though down the cliffs, and it was nice and quiet.

Finally, we were excited to take a dip in the "Queen's Bath".  It's a lava rock formation that forms an idyllic blue pool sheltered from the sea - sometimes.  At other times, it is a churning surging deathtrap with a shallow entrance like a nozzle to shoot any foolish bathers out to sea.  Today was one of the other times, and we chose to swim - elsewhere....  (compare my poorly-made pseudo-panorama shot to the clip off youtube. Hmm)


The tide looked pretty rough in the Queen's Bath and there was no way I was going to dip a toe in there. It was surging in and out with lots of foam. We decided to explore some more, further along the rocks there was another area where people were swimming. Many people were jumping from the very high rocks into the water. I watched with dread as they leapt off. Ty jumped in and urged me to come. I hesitated for quite a long time as it was high and the water was not that calm. Eventually I built up the courage and leapt in (lower down). We sculled for a while and then it was time to try and clamber up the slippery lava rocks back to safety. Perhaps this was a mini warm up for what was to come...
Posted by Picasa

No comments:

Post a Comment