Friday 5 April 2013

Ngataki Beach

I know that before long you are going to be absolutely fed up of seeing beaches on this blog if I'm not careful so today's sets the scene for some detailed shots in the next few days.  Actually as readership of blogs seems to fall off a bit at weekends that might be a good time to post about plants and things.

Ngataki Beach is on the Eastern side of the 'top bit' of the country and, as we discovered, is on the tourist trail for the coaches on the way up to Cape Reinga.  We arrived to a deserted beach and were discovering all sorts of interesting things when a 4x4 zoomed off to the far end of the beach with locals off for some beachcasting.

The amount of seaweeds indicated some recent heavy seas
These weird trails in the sand puzzled us (ignore the 4x4 tracks!)
A less usual seaweed
People!?
Two adventure coach loads! Fortunately we'd seen what we wanted to see.

20 comments:

  1. I'll never tire of lovely beach scenes.
    That's a really unusual seaweed, looks like a beaded chain....maybe a mermaid has lost her jewelry somewhere in the sea.

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    1. What a wonderful imagination you have Virginia. That is much more poetic than I could have been just looking up its name.

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    2. The prize for the best guess of the day for the name of a seaweed goes to Virginia. It is 'Neptune's necklace'...Hormosira banksii.

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    3. Well it just goes to show you! Thanks Katherine and well done Virginia.

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    4. I had no idea, I was just playing around, but it's nice to know the real name....thanks Katherine.

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  2. Before I read this post but after the first image I was going to say I could live here. Then all those folk ruin the place.

    I have always put strange tracks down to crabs....It would be good to know what they really are.

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    1. Adrian the house in the photo is the only one I saw for miles around. We get very jealous of deserted places we find don't we? I shall phone a friend (Katherine if you read this first.....help please and if you don't know then perhaps the Birdman will).

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  3. The memory of all those tourists littering the beach gives me a chuckle. They just looked so out of place, didn't they? Love your first beach shot.

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    1. Yes Pauline they all suddenly appeared, walked to the water edge and then just, well, walked around and walked back.

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  4. That beach certainly looks spacious enough to hold several coach loads of people without them bothering each other too much. Very strange tracks indeed!

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    1. Of course, Meike, you are correct. They were tourists 'doing' the things the coaches were taking them to. I have no right to be snooty about it just because we had the luxury of time to enable us to browse and explore and (until they all came) appreciate the solitude. I shall try and find out about the tracks.

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  5. I suspect the 'track' wasn't made by a creature at all. Unfortunately I think the track-maker is a lot more prosaic: either a chain or a rope laid down and then removed again. It's the way it begins that gives it away - it looks like it's 'flown' in, but no bird I can imagine would make such a mark.
    The bird man is in the Gulf of Carpentaria counting pelicans at the moment, but I'll ask him on his return. What a dreadful life he leads.

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    1. Actually Katherine the 'track' as I called it is raised not indented so I had assumed it was made by something under the sand (there was nothing left there and covered) but its evenness would certainly seem more consistent with something like a chain or rope. Intriguing.

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    2. Aha. The raised-ness vs. indented-ness is in itself interesting. Every time I looked at the photo it had flipped. (I have written about this phenomenon here: http://delphine-angua.blogspot.co.nz/2008/08/sun-and-shadows.html

      Ok, then it appears suddenly because it's something that lives UNDER the sand, maybe. I have absolutely no idea what it could be, then. A light-phobic snake? Very tiny skink?

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  6. oh my goodness! that first photo the area is so beautiful!! wish I were there.

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    1. And, Doreen, this was by no means the most beautiful beach we visited although it had some of the most interesting finds on the beach.

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  7. Beautiful beach pictures, I don't think you have to worry too much of us getting tired of them ;) I like the seaweed-beads! If that track was raised and not indented - did you try digging into it to see if there was something underneath??

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    1. Yes Monica. I found nothing at all. It was all very puzzling. It wasn't the only one either.

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  8. I never get sick of seing seascapes or beach scenes, so just keep posting them.

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    1. Okay Bill. Some more to come before I leave New Zealand at the end of the month.

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