Time: 3 hours and 40 minutes
Distance: 10.5 km
Grade: 3.5 (on the F.W.L.R. Scale)
Start: End of Manuka Bay Road
Finish: Same place (it's there and back)
Date: Friday 23rd April 2021
Rather confusingly, the "Hurunui Manuka Bay Coastal Track" is also called the "Manuka Bay Track" and the "Hurunui Coastal Track" AND is also part of the "Port Robinson Walkway". You can start from either the Manuka Bay Road end or the Hurunui Mouth Road end.
We turned off State Highway 1 at Domett, with the plan being to drive to the Hurunui River Mouth end of this track. But I missed the first turn-off and nearly the second (we were chatting) and so we ended up nearly driving to Gore Bay. Luckily someone spotted the sign for Manuka Bay Road and at the end of that we parked in a small unmarked car park with a turnstile into the Point Gibson Lighthouse Paddock.
At this point we should have opened the gate and driven on the dirt track down to the bay itself. Instead we left the car and marched off through the rabbity field to find the lighthouse. I'd seen it marked on the map and had always wanted to check it out. I was expecting a standard iconic lighthouse. Instead we dubbed it the 'disappointing lighthouse'. It consisted of a couple of rundown wooden structures painted a quirky red and white. Perhaps a relic of days gone by? Definitely worth a photo shoot - the views up the northern coast were spectacular.
Usually we time our adventures to occur sometime in the middle of the walk. But today we launched straight into it by erroneously making the decision to take an ill formed 'path' from the lighthouse straight down to the shore. The vegetation was a light springy grass that weirdly felt like you might break through into something more sinister at any moment. At the point where the grass became dotted with nasty prickles, L.R. flourished one fine leather glove from her tiny backpack (tinier even that the tiny backpack she took on our recent Waiheke trip). We looked on enviously (I still have a prickle lodged in my thumb as I write this 24 hours later).
Halfway down we could finally see the shore line below. It was a veritable seal kindy with ginormous waves crashing into the rocks at the far end. There would be no thoroughfare in that direction. At low tide the shoreline is the Port Robinson Walkway but today it was seal city (cute) and approaching high tide (alarming) and totally impassable. We traversed back up the hill and stumbled fortuitously into someones front garden. They were chatty and pointed out the Port Hills, a thin band of green, in the distance. We were soon on the road down to Manuka Bay (which we should have driven) and the start of the Manuka Bay Track.
Its a gorgeous 4.8 km walk, from road end to road end. It follows the shore line south and then winds up around the back of the eroding cliffs through native bush. You have the bell birds tweeting above and the waves crashing below. Plus a superb coastline in both directions as far as the eye can see. The local community have a pest control program and as we went past their traps we could smell the stench of rotting feral cats. Good on them.
Far below you can see the Hurunui River mouth meeting the sea. A brackish and tumultuous junction of river and ocean. Fresh and salty. It might be possible at low tide to walk around on the coast which would make for a nice loop track. I have actually done this a couple of times in the past but has the river moved since then? I'm not sure. It certainly looked impassable from above. But maybe that was because of the swell and the high tide. I think two hours either side of low tide you could get around the point with no problems.
At the southern end of the track we paused for another photo shoot (Z.P.) before turning and retracing our steps. The journey always seems somehow faster on the return. For the last stretch we strode out onto the wild Manuka Bay beach: stony underfoot with the most awesome shore dump. I wouldn't want to swim here today (although I know someone who definitely would). Two oyster catchers were fast walking three paces in front of us.
On the way home, we decided to check out the Fossil Point Cafe. After our hard efforts we were rewarded with triple shot flat whites and vege stacks. We enjoyed the surrounding artworks: quirky collections of mirrors, silver trays and muffin tins. Local artist, Kim Henderson, has her awesome ceramic bowls, plates, jugs and necklaces for sale and she was in store today. She chatted away and enthusiastically recommended us more walks in the area. Fossil hunting on Motunau Beach. We will be back!
