We got a lovely wild day for leaving the West Coast. The West Coast does Wild naturally. Never mind the Wild Food Festival. The real West Coast is wild beaches. Wild surf. Wild rivers. Wild bush. We’d been parked up at North Beach at Westport. The skies were gray. The tides were high and the waves were crashing in. The driftwood forest was piling up or being sucked away.
Westport Beach, looking north
Westport Beach, looking north.
Wyn on Westport Beach
It wasn’t only the driftwood being sucked away. The waves were eating into the dunes and the vegetation as well. Water was where water shouldn’t oughter be. It’s a strange and fascinating sight watching land getting eaten up and sucked away. I know sand comes and goes. But this was bushes and small trees going as well.
Westport Beach. Seagulls playing chicken with the waves.
Westport Beach. Seagulls chickened.
Westport Beach, waves and birds and logs and bushes.
Westport Beach. Ship emerging from Buller River. Surfer in the waves.
Later in the day we finally headed off from Westport; up the Buller Gorge to Murchison. The Buller Gorge is a very spectacular drive. Especially Hawks Crag where the road is notched out of the cliff. It is a one-way section of road. The overhang always feels so close from inside a 3.6m high motorhome. When it really rains and the river floods the river covers the road. That’s a lot of water.
Hawks Crag, Buller Gorge, Buller River
Gallery of photos – Autumn Adventures – 2014
(Click on any of the photos below to enlarge)
Lovely photos
Hawkes crag looks like road we travel led in spiti. Only the cut out section lasted for
Many kilometres