October 13, 2023
Amazing day yesterday. A long day. Breakfast in Motueka, over the Takaka Hill and an ice cream at Collingwood. On to Puponga and Wharariki to see the rock made famous to the world by Google but to us by L’s Mum, who grew up in the area. Her dad, L’s Pop, was an engineer and train driver at the Puponga mine.
It was a day that certainly blew away the cobwebs – and my sunglasses. We were battling a ferocious westerly on the path to Wharariki Beach when a particularly strong gust whipped them off my face and sent them tumbling down the grassy slope. Irretrievably lost. I was just happy it wasn’t me tumbling down the slope – it was touch and go a couple of times on that short but exposed section of the path.
Even that didn’t prepare us for the wind, rain and sand blasting us on the beach. With impeccable timing, we arrived just as a shower swept through from the west. Undeterred, we snapped our photos and trudged back, sand- and wind-blasted, to the path and sunshine. The wind had erased our footprints, so good job L was there to stop me veering up the wrong sand dune.
It was, we agreed, a grand day out.
Off Highway One 