After our visit to the pyramids at Victory Beach we headed south of Dunedin to Tunnel Beach. Prior to visiting we had read about how in the 1870’s a local dignitary John Cargill, arranged for a tunnel to be carved through the sandstone to allow his family access to the beach here so that they may have a more private bathing spot. As we stood on the top of the cliffs at the car park we were surprised to see such a beautiful coastline, with the sandstone cliffs such a contrast to the dunes and basalt we had seen just a short time earlier.
The walking track dropped quite steeply down towards the sea giving us great views of the coast line and the large sea arch. The fog from earlier had burned off and although it was still a little hazy the sunlight brought out all the different shades of blue in the sea.
We arrived at the entrance to tunnel, and looking through could just about make out the seventy or so shallow steps that form the bottom of the tunnel. The tunnel itself was quite steep and not very high, I think it would have been quite a process to get the Cargill family set up for an afternoon on the beach!
It was hard to imagine someone having the tunnel cut just to access the beach, although once we popped out of the tunnel onto the beach it was easy to see why they had chosen this spot as a private bathing area for their family. Surrounded on three sides by large sandstone cliffs it was a lovely sun trap which also formed a natural amphitheatre causing the sound of the waves to echo around the cove.
The beach also had a couple of large sea caves which were fun to explore. Although these caves weren’t as big as the ones we had seen the previous day they were easily big enough to walk around in.
