The beach that stretches from Riverton to Invercargill must be one of our region's least known treasures.
I walked it on Sunday, along with a group
of friends, and we all had a wonderful time; foamy waves splashed, gulls
wheeled and the sun shone down on us for the whole 6 hours it took to
complete the walk.
On one side, there were sand dunes littered with shells
and feathers, on the other, the wave-filled bay with Stewart Island
seeming to float out in the strait. It's the kind of walk a family could
do, if they were reasonably fit and had a good tide-timetable.
You can
even walk it in bare feet! It's surprising how accessible an adventure
like the Oreti/Riverton beach walk is for us Southlanders.
We are very
lucky indeed.
Robert Guyton
6 comments:
You're all such an inspiration!
You're going o do the walk then, Jordan?
It's well worth it. Watch out for interesting flotsam and jetsam.
And birds. There are tiny pipits scootling around on the sand.
Sounds lovely Robert ..yeah even as a kid I wondered about the north of Oreti to ?? Waimahaka River mouth?
As a kid there were wild stories around that it was dangerous with a layer of quick sand ..naturally when told to an impressionable kid this was embossed and stirred up a little ..so I was a little nervous ever bike it etc
Walk SIX hours boy you were keen and no doubt a little tired at the end ... I presume you had someone to pick you up when you finnished!!
I've heard a lot of accounts of the quicksand, pauline. All seem to be second or third hand. I did see a photograph of the roof of a tow truck, flush with the sand, that had been sent to rescue a car that had been sucked under, way back when I first visited Invercargill as a 19 year-old. I've not heard one true account of a person having the slightest trouble. The sand is hard-packed all the way from Riverton to the Oreti beach entrance, believe me!
I spent last night making this image, two friends want to move away from Invercargill, but the Shad-bulk/Shad-hulk won't have a bar of it!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaywontdart/8014714388/in/photostream
If I have time today, I'll make a version of Robert sinking into Oreti Beach. Pauline, if you'd like to email me a photo of yourself, info@invsoc.org.nz , then I can put your head on the body of somone making a finger wagging "I TOLD you, didn't I TELL you?" gesture :-)
Very interesting Robert ...which says two possible scenarios
1)The so called quick sand warning was an Southland urban myth that had been carried down the time and was actaully believed to be true ..maybe it started as a joke Re truck in sand yeah something in the back of my mind remembers that picture which surfaced around this province.
OR 2)Nature itself which had brought quick sand to this area also removed it ..in reality it was a freak of nature one seasonal time. That the picture of truck was a fraud or a set up by someone with a sense of humour.
hmmmm interesting It would be fun finding out the truth maybe someone like Loyd Esler might know . Maybe changes in the environment re developments on the land helped to get rid of the quicksand ..I do remember been told as a youngster by ( adults in my life) that the area of quicksand was not big and you could walk around it. BUT the trick was you needed to know where it was actualy located
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