Morning came fast on the 10th! The alarm went and there was a brief moment when I considered not getting out of bed, but I hauled myself up and into the car to set off on the more-exciting-than-strictly-required drive down to Hahei and on to Cathedral Cove.
As I parked my car, I noticed nearly a dozen other vehicles in the parking lot and my heart sunk slightly at the thought that some tour might be down at the beach already. But with the sky already starting to show signs of the gathering sunrise, I knew I had no time to dwell on whether or not I’d have company once I reached the sand. I set off at a jog and moved as quickly as my ever-dimming head lamp would let me (dang it! I knew I should’ve bought more batteries) – and sometimes a little faster. The path is heavily rutted most of the way and steep in places, so I couldn’t help but have visions of me outrunning my light, twisting an ankle and being left in a heap until someone found me in a couple of hours’ time. That didn’t, of course, happen.
As I rounded corners with views out to sea, I could see red and yellow beginning to crease the horizon, so I kept up my pace, turning a 45-minute walk into perhaps a 20-minute adventure. Throughout the “walk”, I was surprised by the unadulterated silence; the density of the forest blocked out all sound, other than my laboured breathing as I tried to keep both my balance and cardio activity in check. Knowing I was nearing the end of the run, I rounded a corner and was met by a sudden wall of sound: the sea. Somewhere in the last 5 metres, the angles had changed and the forest had thinned enough for that magical sound of crashing surf to finally reach me.
When I reached the sand, camera in hand, I paused long enough to notice that my fears of tour groups camped out on the sand were unfounded; I was totally and completely alone on a beach normally swarming with tourists. I began scoping out points of interest with a sense of frenzied urgency – the offshore islands, framed by branches in the tree in front of me; the rock on the other side of the cave, glowing in the gathering light; the waves as they rushed ashore in the rising tide. As my breath evened out, so too calmed the pace of my picture-taking, and I began to take in smaller details and more fully appreciate the increasing glow out at sea. I crossed through the cave, knowing that high tide wasn’t far off and that if I didn’t get over there now, I’d risk ruining my gear in the waves as they crashed against the far edge of the cave.
Once in the other cove, it was easy to see that I was no longer alone: three guys had camped out overnight and were, much to my disgust, playing castaway, complete with roaring fire under the canopy of a lone, large pohutakawa tree. Fires are completely banned in the parks because of the dry weather, making theirs an act of complete stupidity. Nothing like blatant disregard of nature to give backpackers a bad name…
Ignoring the ignoramuses (ignorami?) I was now stuck sharing the beach with (the rising tide had, as suspected, made passage back through the cave a danger to my gear), I spread my sarong, stripped off some layers, and alternated between dipping myself in a seemingly-temperate sea and snapping multitudes of photos as the rising sun illuminated the mammoth rock immediately offshore, making it glow copper, then gold, then almost white. As the sun gradually crept across the sand, I settled in with my book and enjoyed 3 more blissful hours camped out in the cove. So oblivious was I to my surroundings that I was quite startled when, at about 9am, I turned over to find that about 30 people had gathered along the beach. This experience couldn’t have differed more from the trip that Rich and I had made the week before down to this very same beach, with overcast skies, midday light and plenty of other photo-seekers snapping away. Despite the absent husband, I know which version of Cathedral Cove I prefer…
I very slowly made my way back up the track under the unabated glare of the near-midday sun (one of the indisputable perks of our first trip was having cloud cover to lessen the intensity of the sun) and noticed a marked change in the forest sounds this time: the noise of the cicadas, humming like the magnified sound of live wire, was overwhelming. It would be very easy to use every sea/beach/forest/mountain-ish hill cliché to describe my morning on the cove because they’re all true, but I hope I’ve done this beautiful spot a bit of justice.
Once back in town, I stopped at the main beach in Whitianga to enjoy another picnic meal, while the gulls eyed my food with envy and I eyed them with contempt and tried to decide how to spend my afternoon. For the past month, I’d been wanting to go shellfishing, finding it difficult to resist the urge to join other people in knee-deep water, forearms submerged as they rustled around, trying to collect dinner, but the timing had never been right and Rich was never too keen to stop. Recognising an opportunity when it came along, I grabbed my now-empty plastic bag and walked along the beach, unsure of what I was doing or where to do it.
Gradually, a small cluster of people had begun to gather in the water just outside the harbour, so I walked that way and joined them, spending a very entertaining half hour or more collecting my ration of 50 pipis (‘pippis’, like an oblong clam). Having not checked with any of the Eccleses (eseses) to see if they actually LIKED pipis, I knew that I may end up putting these little guys back where they came from, but I didn’t even care. The collecting is the fun part. As it turned out, my bag full of shellfish was adopted by a woman across the road from the house, and that was just fine by me – I had bigger (shell)fish to fry for dinner.
Not long before supper, we went to the local airfield to see Diane off on a rather rock-star adventure. She was being collected by helicopter and flown out to to a private home on Great Mercury Island to give massages to the rich and semi-famous for a couple of days. Tough!
As Graham and I waved goodbye to a very nervous Diane, my thoughts turned, as they usually do, to food. I was SO excited about dinner that I couldn’t wait to get home and get eating. As it turned out, our crayfish and scallop dinner was every bit as good as I’d hoped and we did a pretty good job demolishing the tails and a few legs from two of the crayfish and all 25 scallops, some of which Ryan had taken to the local fish and chip shop in order to have them battered fried. I’d always thought that battered scallops would be horrible and rubbery, but it turns out that when you live in a small town and have access to both fresh seafood and a BYO fish and chip place (which I think is hilarious), fried scallops are actually right up my alley. A couple of glasses of wine (rather than a couple of bottles, this time) with dinner and some good chat about life and rugby, then it was time for bed. My 5am start was definitely getting the better of me, but what a day it was…
My apologies for the repetitive photos of the same rock – it changed a lot over the course of an hour and I was playing around with things, so you’ll see it a number of times. :)
Grateful for: Ryan’s diving skills, whoever the genius was that made underwater exploration – and, consequently, meal collection – possible, deserted (or semi-deserted) beaches
