We left the area around Cape Foulwind and continued through the rolling green hills to the start of the track to Wharariki Beach. We had planned our day so that we would arrive here at low tide in order to see as much as possible of this beach.
The short track took us through more farmland before the grass gave way to sand dunes. As we came over the top of the dunes, we got our first view of the beach and the rock features just offshore.
The beach itself was part of a massive sandy bay and so we decided to head towards one end of the beach where the cliffs started. As we got closer to the rocks, we noticed that there were passageways between them, leading out to the ocean.
Further up the beach these gaps in the rocks formed caves big enough to explore. With the tide almost all the way out we were able to walk back into the caves, although some of the caves already had occupants!
The largest cave continued through the rocks for quite a distance, just as we were thinking we were going to have to turn back, we caught a glimpse of sunlight coming from the far end of the cave as it opened out to the ocean. The waves echoed through the huge cave and occasionally they paused enough to allow us to get close to the mouth of the cave, although we were never quite able to make it to the seaward side of the cave.
After spending some time just listening to the waves, we made our way back out of the cave towards the main part of the beach. With the tide almost all the way out, we set out across the sand, enjoying the ever changing views of the coastline.
We had seen information about the offshore rocks and arches, but we were surprised to see a number of smaller rock features on the beach.
As we made our way back to the main beach, we stopped by another rocky outcrop to see some more seals. There was a large group resting on the rocks, including a number of babies.
Despite the sharp rocks, most of the seals were quite active and didn’t seem to mind us watching them from a distance. We are not quite sure what this one was up to, but it seems worthy of a caption contest!
As the tide continued to rise, we left the seals to their antics and made our way back along the beach to the track. Although it had been quite a long day we were amazed by how much we had seen, and the variety of landscapes in such a small area.