Winterbeach
15 June 11
The weather has cooled off over the last couple of weeks, but we haven’t felt the chill bite us yet. We’ve been sheltering with friends, plugging into electricity (yay!) and exploring the beautiful New Zealand landscapes around us. Today we made a visit to a winter beach at Mahuta Gap on the west coast.
David drove us down to the beach via the Mahuta Gap Road, which also doubles as a creekbed. We were so thankful to borrow the farm's motorbike and trailer to get around the countryside!
Even though the wind is chilly, the girls enjoy each ride in the back of the trailer.
The road ends right at the beach. It's crazy to be able to drive on the sand so easily, but the New Zealand sand is so different to what *we* are used to you can get a car down this track and on the beach without getting bogged.
Some people use the beach as a faster substitute for the winding country roads that are further inland. The sand is so hard and smooth that it's a very safe place to drive.
David found a small shark that had washed up on the beach the smell made me think that it had been dead for a while.
The sandhills at Mahuta Gap Beach are carved into fantastic shapes by the wind and rain.
The sandhills are marked with visitors' names and initials more contemporary than some of the ancient art we've seen in outback Queensland, but no more irrelevant.
David and the girls found sticks to help them climb the sandhills.
It's a pleasure to explore new places with our daughters.
Calista was happy to climb up to the different caves on the hillside.
The girls like playing "Queen of the Castle" I am happy to be the dirty rascal.
Brioni liked finding new ways of climbing up and down the hills "secret pathways", she calls them.
The girls discovered that some of the caves were actually tunnels that they could crawl through.
We watched this man collect seaweed from the beach probably to use as fertiliser on his garden.
Enjoying the beach in the wintertime means we need to rug up first and then explore the whole landscape that surrounds us.
While we were on our way back to the farm, we met Nigel and Andy on the other motorbike.
We all enjoyed our winter’s outing to the beach. We’re showing our girls how to venture outdoors in a variety of weather conditions, and I drove the four-wheeled-motorbike back home (after David encouraged me to have go)!
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