A Day Off at the Seaside

We felt we needed a little cheering up one day last week and a break from 'getting on with things' on the property, so rewarded ourselves (and Tansy) with a picnic on the coast.  After several days of rain, we were lucky enough to be blessed with a perfect winter's day, and set off for Castlepoint, 69 kms north east of Masterton.  Castlepoint is famous for its lighthouse, annual horse races on the beach, and 160-metre-high Castle Point rock. It is popular for holidays and fishing, and has a safe swimming beach and tidal lagoon. 

Castlepoint takes its name from Castle Point, the impressive rock outcrop at the settlement's southern end. The rock was named by the British navigator James Cook in 1770, presumably because the landform resembled a fortress.   Castle Point is one of Wairarapa’s most spectacular landforms. It is made of successive layers of lime and sandstone, deposited over the last two million years. On the seaward side it sits on an older base of siltstone. As the land rose from the sea, the encircling softer mudstone was eroded, exposing harder limestone.

With its strong winds, shallows, reefs and currents, the eastern Wairarapa coast can be dangerous. Since 1849, 31 vessels have foundered there and 31 lives have been lost. In 1913, a 23 metre high lighthouse was built on Castlepoint reef. It is New Zealand's third highest lighthouse and sends three flashes every 45 seconds, visible for 30 kilometres. The last lighthouse keeper retired in 1958, due to automation.

After an invigorating walk up to the lighthouse and back, we headed north to the much less occupied Mataikona, about 20 minutes' further drive.

Looking north towards Mataikona - taken from the path leading up to the Castlepoint lighthouse

Mataikona could be best described as an 'olde worlde' lightly populated beach settlement.  No store, pub nor garage.  Very few permanent residents.  Lots of baches.  This place must really hum over Christmas/New Year

Amazing rock formations at Mataikona beach. This is close-up detail of one of the rocky 'channels' shown in the other photo

So, we had a lovely day off.  A super bonus was finding a nice big deposit of kale seaweed very near the spot we chose to have our picnic, so came home with a garbage bag full to make seawood fertilizer and foliar spray.