From Muriwai almost to South Head runs Coast Road, for most of it’s distance available only to horses and pedestrians. The short public access section of it that heads up from Motutara Rd in Muriwai, past the golf course takes you to the Okiritoto Stream access to Muriwai Beach, and for the curious, a walking track heads north from here.
There was a cold and blustery east wind stinging our faces with sand as we left the car and headed north past the sign.
It’s mainly grass and scrub, coastal coprosma and pittosporums and vast yellow-olive cushions of muehlenbeckia, with an occasional macrocarpa suggesting some farmer has tried to make it work here years ago.
It’s not so much a track as it is kikuyu flattened by passers by.
We travel along the back of a large grassy dune. From the top, a scrubby interdune area of about 150m width separates us from the beach dune.
Here’s the stream. We head left towards the coast,
cutting diagonally up the dune.
From the top we can see the coast and the scrubby interdune area.
Alice bounces around in the muehlenbeckia. Years ago as a teenager I spread out my sleeping bag for the night at Hot Water Beach on a living mattress of this stuff. Very comfortable as I recall it but I wonder how my present 125kg frame would appreciate it these days.
The track hugs the edge of the dune, a most precarious looking situation.
Hmmm….
It’s a mite exposed up here, visually and climatically, to be doffing your knickers for any reason. We conclude charitably that they’ve fallen out of someone’s beachbag on the way home from a swim.
Miranda heads across the interdune towards the mouth of the stream.