Kakanui River Mouth

After attending the ANZAC Dawn Service I headed south.  

In all my trips south I have never turned off the main road and driven down to Karitane.  A man I work with had been telling me what a lovely spot it is so I promised myself I would make it there these holidays.  Today was the day, and he is right, it is a lovely spot.  The weather was pretty lousy but it was still picturesque and its obviously a lovely sheltered beach.  Sadly there is no camp there, or I would have been tempted to stay!  

My extra is a photo of the north end of the beach - see Phil, I did go!

After a walk on the beach, and a read and lunch in the van, I headed north again.  I am always tempted to stop in at familiar places, but talked myself out of it and headed down the Waianakarua Road to Kakanui.  I've been to Kakanui once before and wasn't very excited by it, but I obviously went the wrong way and the wrong places that time.

Today I was really taken with the place.  Wonderful beaches and headlands along the route I took today.  I stopped at "All Day Bay" and had a poke around the rocks thinking I might spot fossils.  Sadly I didn't.  Nor did I spot any of the penguins that reputedly live there.  Still, a great spot.

I poked around lots of little side roads and wound up at the river mouth.  These old boat sheds grabbed my attention.  I love the variety in this row of well used sheds.  So much character.  The smoke is from a group who were sitting in the doorway of their shed, boiling the billy and having a natter.

It made me laugh when I compared them in my head with the likes of the 'matching' boat sheds at Oriental Bay in Wellington.