It was one of those magical winter’s day, crisp but beautifully sunny and very little wind! 22 of us set out from the car park at Te Kopahau Reserve. This is the old site of a quarry which closed in the late 1990’s and WCC purchased the site in 2000. It has been developed into a car park, visitor centre and toilet block. The walk to Red Rocks and on to Devil’s Gate follows a gravel road which had disappeared in places due to landslides.

We had to navigate a couple of streams along the way. These are normally dry but we have had a very wet winter. Walking along the coast was a real delight. We could see across to Bearing Head, last weeks walk and there were magnificent views of the Kaikoura’s. Tapuae-O-Uenuku, the highest mountain had a lot of snow and my photo just didn’t do it justice. After an hour, we reached Red Rocks and stopped for a group photo. No mean feat with so many of us. Red Rocks has a couple of Māori legends including Maui staining the rocks with blood from his nose (blood which he used to bait his hook before catching Te Ika a Maui - the North Island); and Kupe had his hand clamped by Paua. The geologists say it is iron oxide from basaltic lavas.

We then went on and climbed over Devil’s Gate where we saw a good number of seals basking in the sun. We were going to walk on further but the next bay was in shade, so decided to stop for morning tea or an early lunch in the sun.

We managed to walk back out in under and hour and it was a relief to see the coffee caravan was open as fitting such a large group of us into a café would have been a mission. The coffee at the caravan was great but the eft-pos wasn’t working too well.

It had been a lovely morning’s walk.  

Lead - Judith O’Leary

Walkers: Mark and Helen, Trisha & Paul, Gordon, Nichole, Andrea, Sheila, Sue B, Annemarie, Denise M, Helena, Jacqueline, Anna, Sharon, Delphine, Linda, Christine, Lynn, who brought 2 family members.