Time: 1 hour and 30 minutes
Distance: 5.8 km
Start: Car park at the end of North Terrace, Waikuku Beach
Finish: Same place, it's a loop.
Date: Friday 21st December
Warnings: This walk is best done at mid-to-low tide. Because birds nest on the spit, dogs must be on a leash on the beach, and no dogs are allowed on the estuary side.
A few missing sunhats, some ambiguous directions, the picking up of some stragglers, and an old dog called Blue. A semi-typical Friday Walkies travel-to-destination experience. We swept into the Waikuku Beach car park, chit-chatting about the near-death experiences of our youth - alarming stories involving large waves and snowy mountains.
The plan was to walk the spit. Up the beach side and back along the Ashley River/Rakahuri Estuary. There is a path that runs from the car park directly to the beach through the dunes, which today, were fabulously in flower - a mass of yellow lupins. Jane was sneezing prolifically - probably the pollen. We got to the beach and, an auspicious birthday was revealed as we headed north. On our right, the gorgeous waves of the blue blue blue Pacific/Te-Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, were sparkling in the sun. It has been awhile since we all walked together (normally this only happens if a winery is involved), and so it was lovely to catch up.
The spit to the mouth of the Ashley/Rakahuri River used to be much shorter, but about a year ago a storm changed the course and now the river exits to the sea much further north. We got these infos from a lovely local lady who took our group photo. On the topo map, the track had us in the ocean, but we were firmly on sand.
We reached the river mouth. The river, ocean, sky and the dog were all blue, blue, blue, and Blue. Beautiful. The Rakahuri River winds its way from the Puketeraki Range, through the Lees Valley and Ashley Gorge, then across the Canterbury Plains/Kā-Pākihi-whakatekateka-o-Waitaha to the coast. In Te Reo Māori, "raka" means entangled and "huri" means turning.
The plan for the return was to more-or-less follow the curve of the river back along the estuary. It was two hours before low tide, and we squelched along. If you walked just at the junction of the wet and dry sand you didn't sink in too much. A hangout of shags, a colony of black-backed gulls, and a couple of oyster catchers were unsettled by our passing. Birds nest here. Apparently they lay their eggs in the dry sand of the spit - which seems decidedly daft to me. As we walked, somehow the conversation returned once more to the near-death experiences of our youths (also decidedly daft). An alarming story to cap them all: being swept rapidly 10 km downstream during an attempt to cross the Buller River. Caught in eddies and dragged across rocks. One's heart palpitated just thinking about it!
