I’ve been in the Hawkes Bay area about 3 or 4 times since I live in New Zealand. – And I’ve never made it to Cape Kidnappers yet. :(
At first I didn’t know that you could only walk to the cape at low tide. Then low tide was always at the wrong time of the day (well, at least not when it was convenient for me) or I didn’t have enough time to do a 5 hour hike.
This time I was spending five days up here – so this time it was bound to happen, right?
Well……… I tried.
– More after the break :)
I wasn’t going there for the birds. Cape Kidnappers plateau is one of only three (large) mainland colonies for Gannets worldwide. But Nesting season is between November and March, just before the chicks (who have never flown before) start their journey over to Australia.
I was going there for the landscape. I had seen so many awesome pictures of the cape – plus I already had seen some Gannets at Muriwai Beach.
It started out to be a beautiful morning, but I had to wait for another three hours after highest tide before I could start my walk towards the cape.
It’s an astonishing landscape: huge cliffs (up to 100m high) going right to the edge of the beach – “the beach” being just a 5-10m narrow stripe of small (and some larger) gravel and stones, washed round by the enormous power of the waves and tides.
When I finally parked my car in Clifton (Te Awanga) just before the entrance to the Kidnappers campground around mid day, the sun was shining – where I was. The cape however was covered by misty rain – and black storm clouds where out on the ocean…
I decided to start my walk anyway. The wind (a light southwesterly) was in my favor after all.
After walking for about 40 minutes on loose gravel and rocks (very tiring), it started drizzling! Not the best place to be right now: Rough waves to the left of me and huge cliffs that were getting soft from all the rain to the right. I already had noticed a few smaller land slides and rock falls – nothing major so far, but I did see another massive one, just a couple hundred meters in front of me. It had pulled quite a few trees down. The tide was not yet low enough for me to pass this barrier – so i turned around after all.
Being back at the entrance to the walk a good half hour later, Cape Kidnappers behind me was laying in the sun – blue skies above it. Damn!
