Taking only photographs – leaving only footprints
Punakaiki is a must stop location on New Zealand’s west coast. Driving south along State Highway 6 there is a lot of amazing landscapes but not a huge amount of places to stop and photograph the coast. This is the view north from Pancake Rocks looking along Punakaiki Beach towards Te Miko. If you look closely on the right of the photograph you can see vehicles coming up the hill along the highway.
The coastal city of Tauranga has many popular sandy beaches. Pilot Bay is one of the calmer, more shelter beach opposite Mount Maugnanui main beach. Perfect for families and swimmers. In the background on the right is the hundreds of boats at the various marinas around the Tauranga Harbour. This was taken from the Pilot Quay Parking lots at the north west end of the beach. Looking south east along The Mall. Hopefully next time I’m in the area I’ll have more time to get in the water.
Having missed the kite festival at Otaki Beach for the last few years, I was happy to finally get there. There were kites of all different types. With kite clubs coming from around the country. Even a demonstration from a team that had come over from Australia. These inflatables were the highlight. In this photograph, I tried to capture the variety. Standing ankle deep in the surf to get some reflections in the foreground.
Driving along the Chaslands Highway we came over a hill to see this coastal landscape. This is the view from Florence Hill Lookout. From here to the Tautuku Peninsula it’s about 2 kilometres. It’s the only place left on the east coast of the South Island where native forest fully covers a catchment from hill-tops to sea. The ancient forest with trees over 1,000 years old and grows right down to the seashore.