21-22 September 2008
We headed out from Mt Holdsworth with the cloud coming over the tops bigtime, and decided more or less on the spur of the moment and on the basis of some DoC maps to check out Castlepoint Beach. It’s a nice easy drive out from Masterton, and we just cruised along through clean green New Zealand, all looking pretty awesome. In retrospect, my foot had been extremely light on the accelerator, but it wasn’t until we neared the beach and the road went transverse to some big valleys that we noticed anything untoward, as the steering wheel began to develop a mind of its own.
We finished the last few kilometres gratefully, and pulled in beside the beachside toilets. When we looked out at the surf we saw the tops of the breakers being spun off and thrown six or seven metres in the air and south down the coast.
The van seemed about to do the same. The toilets were the proverbial brick variety, and I carefully negotiated the van right alongside of them where there was some small shelter to be had.
Wellingtonians are yawning and going “boring….” at this point, but for us jafas, a 140km wind was something to be savoured when we weren’t wondering how quickly we could make it to the toilet if necessary and whether the van needed our weight to stay on the ground.
Castlepoint offers possibly the only harbour on the southeast coast of the North Island, and as my friend, David, remarked, if you need to shelter, you’re not going to make it inside the harbour safely anyway.
You can see the lighthouse, on its rocky outcrop, and from there it slopes down to a long narrow reef at its lowest about 2 metres above the sea.
When it’s at all rough, walkers are asked to keep off the reef altogether as rogue waves have claimed many an unsuspecting victim.
As the reef approaches Castle Point (two words) it rises again. Between the reef and the mainland settlement of Castlepoint (one word) is a sandy double high tide line, mostly dry, except in storms.
The walking track we are eventually going to get round to talking about runs from the road end roughly SW, curving around the harbour, and then heading (optionally) right up to the clifftop lookout before returning you to the beach and a walk along the sand back to the van.
As a harbour, in the true sense of the word, it fails miserably. In a major storm raging through between the lighthouse and the settlement, you wouldn’t want your boat anywhere near it.
As a spot to launch your boat from in calm weather, it’s great, and the next thing to know is that this area boasts some of the biggest boat trailers I’ve seen in a long time – for boats that anywhere else would be of a size to be permanently in the water.
That’s full size farm tractor.
Anyway, we put the van in low gear and think “heavy” as I carefully head back to the campground, about a km further back.
The proprietor gives us the windspeed and finds us a wonderfully sheltered spot which looks right over the beach and out to the lighthouse.
I carefully chock all the wheels as a further insurance and we set up camp and head down to the beach on foot for a closer look. Behind us the clouds are impressive
Once again, I’d love to have a geology degree under my belt.
Some of these look strangely familiar and I wonder how Alice is getting on at Peter’s in Fordell.
The windblown sand has turned the beach into a million small sculptures
Next morning, the wind has gone. Miranda is up early to catch an east coast sunrise. (You might have brushed your hair, girl. You never know who’s going to see you looking like that.)
Just at the moment the tide is in a bit far to get to the lighthouse dryshod, so Miranda heads down the reef for a few shots. It’s a bit clambery for large persons, so I wander back across for a closer look at the big trailers until she heads back.
A building which I had at first sight taken to be changing sheds/toilets
turns out on closer inspection to be
You’d think they’d have learned SOMETHING from the circumstances of Jesus’ birth, but no….
Maybe there’s an inn somewhere we can go.
Some aspects of religion I find difficult to follow at times. I wander over for a closer look at the wooden cross.
We finally turn our attention to the track proper.
In some ways the track is the least interesting part of the visit. We head up into the pines.
In surroundings which can get pretty parched, one of the survivors is a variety of New Zealand spinach, Tetragonia implexicoma
This is not the same as the garden New Zealand Spinach, (Tetragonia tetragonoides) aka Warrigal Greens if you’re an Aussie. It is edible, certainly, but quite a bit tougher than I usually like my spinach.
Further along, there are great thickets of it, scrambling over the coastal Coprosma.
Most of the walk is in the open, and a hat and sunblock is a good idea, and probably a water bottle as well.
The major justification for the walk is that the views along the way are pretty stunning. That’s Castle Point, named by Captain Cook. From the sea it seemed to him to resemble a the battlements of a castle. I imagine that local Maori may well have viewed it in a similar light, but we saw no evidence that this has been researched at all – no educational signage etc, as there was at Mt Holdsworth. Water supply, or rather its absence, may well have reduced the value of the point as a defensive refuge.
The local body concerned has taken plenty of trouble to provide good seating along the way
We climb for a bit more and finally it all levels out
and just when you think you’re getting away from it all and isn’t it grand….
Ah, well. Somebody has to take care of the sheep. Reckon I’d build a house here too if I could.
Might have trouble with the orchard, mind you. Maybe not, after all.
Onwards. That hill looks deceptively small from here.
It’s all a bit similar along here. Not to worry.
There’s a wind across the hills which is exactly what the doctor ordered, and the very slight odour of sheepshit that comes along with it is easily borne.
We round a corner and a slightly deeper gully has prompted a nice piece of boardwalk – and a rail, for heaven’s sake. I could have used a rail some other places I’ve walked.
It’s a well-used track along here and I can understand why.
It’s a perfect walking day.
Now we’re starting to climb a bit, towards the saddle that joins Castle Point to the mainland.
From here we can look south right along the coast.
The saddle starts to narrow and I pay attention a little more closely. This would not have been my preferred spot yesterday afternoon.
Around about here, the track diverges. Miranda goes straight ahead and up the hill to the clifftop lookout, and I take the lazy option.
There’s the track going around the side of the hill and up. Another couple of walkers are on their way down
I start downwards
Now on the way down from here is a plant that in it’s natural state grows nowhere else in the world . It’s called the Castlepoint daisy and it’s a close relation of the rangiora.
The scientific name is Brachyglottis compacta, a well-chosen name from the visible habit of the plant on this windswept promontory.
We’re a bit late in the season to get a really good example of the flower, but in the end I find one growing not too far from the track.
It’s common enough on the hillside yet I still feel very privileged to have made the acquaintance of this quite unusual cliff dweller.
A little further down is a plant that in the lower North Island – ie, around here, is up for weed status and yet you’ll see it for sale up north in the herb section of plant shops.
This is horehound. The first plant I ever grew of this I found as a weed on the slopes of Te Mata peak, and wrapped it carefully in wet newspaper for the trip home to Drury.
It is an essential ingredient in a herb tea that nearly always is able to stop a cold in it’s tracks. Bitter as hell. One of its other minor historical uses was in connection with beer making.
Down we go and there’s another of the very fine seats provided for our leisure on this walk. They’re not just your standard ARC bench, some design and some craft has gone into the building of them.
And another seat. Facing the wrong way, though. I’d want to be looking down at the beach.
I keep on downwards, looking back every now and again to see whether Miranda is visible.
And there she is.
We walk back along the beach together
past the big boat trailers and their big boats
and back to the van.
Elapsed fatman time for the abridged circuit is about the same as fit person’s time including the trip up the hill to the top, about 80 minutes comfortable going.