We had an eventful drive to Tauranga. We stopped at Cook’s Beach where Captain Cook first landed in New Zealand. We had by then forgotten that there was a Tsunami warning following the severe earthquake in Chile. The beach was very sandy and pretty and the tide was going out quite quickly and was a long way out. Having walked to the sea’s edge we then walked across to where the river entered the sea and this was flowing very strongly. A local advised that this was the first effects of the Tsunami as the sea was effectively being sucked out. It was at this point that it started to come back in and we beat a hasty retreat to the shore line. Within half an hour the water was well up the beach despite the fact that in theory the tide was still supposed to be going out (see Liz’s pictures); fortunately there were no big waves but just a surge of water coming back in. We then went on to Hot Water Beach which had some good surf. The beach was officially closed, which was being completely ignored by the locals. We therefore walked along the beach to the hot springs and experienced very hot water bubbling up out of the sand. We met Jill and David (friends from UK) when we arrived in Tauranga and stayed with them on a Kiwi fruit farm (see Pic) where they were house sitting. We had an excellent BBQ with them and their NZ friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment