14.06 Ocean Beach & Havelock North: Findings & Discoveries

6.A View from Ahuriri (in Napier) towards Westshore

Often in life we are searching. In searches there are three possible results. We don't find what we're looking for. We do find what we're looking for. Or, we actually discover something, great or small, something we weren't precisely looking for but which we found in spite of or, perhaps, because of our search for something else. Successful searches, in other words, yield findings and, more rarely, discoveries. Discoveries come with a measure of surprise.

The photo above seems to hold no surprises. It was taken from a shore in the Ahuriri district of Napier, where Jean and I are currently living. From the photo you might deduce that this location isn't particularly swimmer-friendly. Indeed, it isn't. Napier's main waterfront is little better. It has what's called a 'shingle beach'. The photo below shows what that's like. The shingle beach and the reportedly treacherous waters immediately offshore insure that people don't come to Napier to swim or surf.

6.B Typical Beach Aggregate along Napier's Waterfront

Because we've been anticipating at least one visitor who would want to go swimming, Jean and I decided we needed to search for a swimmer-friendly beach. Last Saturday we headed south out of Napier to a place called Ocean Beach, reported to have a broad and long sandy beach. As the crow flies, Ocean Beach is about thirty kilometers (or eighteen miles) from our apartment in Ahuriri. The drive there without pause took us somewhat over an hour. The photos below depict some of what we saw at the beach.

6.C Motu O Kura (Bare Island) in the Distance and Surf and Sand Close-at-hand

6.D Driftwood at Ocean Beach

6.E Bringing a Surf Boat Ashore with Cape Kidnappers Headlands Beyond

6.F Footprints and Surf at Ocean Beach

As the photos suggest, Ocean Beach wasn't crowded. There were no sunbathers or swimmers, just some surfers and walkers. As is seemingly typical in New Zealand, a surf life saving club is housed at the beach, affording a measure of accommodation and safety to visitors. I suppose most people seen at Ocean Beach are visitors. The village there appears to have no more than a score of cottages (or 'bachs' in Kiwiese). Yet, according to Surf Forecast.com, Ocean Beach can become crowded. 

The trip to and from the beach had its own unanticipated compensations. Here, below, are some photos of the Maraetotara and Tukituki hinterlands along Ocean Beach Road, which connects Ocean Beach to the world. We passed a number of vineyards and sheep stations. The country was and is a bit dry for this time of year, but no matter. New Zealand is always beautiful.

6.G A View from Ocean Beach Road

6.H Another View

6.I A Countryside Beauty

6.J Te Mata Peak in the Distance; Tukituki River in Foreground

6.K Hills and Brush

When Jean and I turned back from Ocean Beach, we elected to take a slight detour into the town of Havelock North,  a suburb of Hastings. Havelock North, Hastings, and Napier all take their names from men prominent in 19th Century Imperial India. You won't see a statue of Henry Havelock, the town's namesake, anywhere in town (You could travel to Trafalgar Square in London for that). Instead the town's memorial green is dedicated to the town's war dead, more than ever remembered in 2014, a century since the onset of WWI. New Zealand's participation in that war through ANZAC (the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) is solemnly remembered every April 25th (See Blogpost 13.16) and is invariably remembered in New Zealand towns and cities with memorials of one sort or another.

6.L Memorial Cenotaph and Christmas Tree, Havelock North

'Havelock North Village', as it's called, serves as the prosperous town's central business district ('CBD') or downtown. Unusual for Kiwi towns is the prominence of one of its churches, St Luke's Anglican. Its general appearance reminds me of churches I've seen in Sweden, of all places.

6.M St Luke's Anglican Church, Havelock North

6.N St Luke's Green

6.O Tower & Buttressing, St Luke's Anglican Church

Two aspects of the St Luke's edifice deserve comment. Firstly, one doesn't ordinarily see New Zealand churches with towers. Unless a congregation has the means to erect a highly earthquake-resistant tower, a tower won't be erected. Substantial towers are mostly found on cathedrals (See here, for example). St Luke's is an exception. Secondly, the church building is exceptional in having buttressing. Given the frequency of earthquakes in New Zealand, one wonders why more buildings, sacred or secular, don't incorporate buttressing.

Before leaving Havelock North we patronized a shop or two and a craft fair being held in the CBD. Currently there seem to be numerous fairs in and about the Hawke's Bay Region, probably because of the impending Christmas holiday. On our way out of town we discovered a 'figgery', Te Mata Figs, where we purchased dried figs and a walnut-and-fig log marketed as 'salame di fichi'. Apparently the mild, comparatively dry climate of this part of New Zealand favors fig growing, not to mention a wide variety of other fruits. The Hawke's Bay Region is one of New Zealand's primary fruit growing regions. A review of New Zealand's 'fruit-growing possibilities' may be found here.

The one possibility precluded in our fact-finding trek to Ocean Beach was the possibility of a sand beach near Ahuriri. Sunday, following our outing to Ocean Beach, on a walkabout Jean and I discovered a sand beach in Westshore, the neighborhood just visible across the waters in the lead photo (6.A), above. The beach doesn't have the sunny sand colour of Ocean Beach, nor its extent, nor its wild setting. But it's within walking distance of our apartment and it, too, hosts a surf life saving club. We had traveled some distance only to discover something suitable virtually right under our noses. Nonetheless, we'll probably return to Ocean Beach, at least once, just as we've returned to New Zealand. The views are great and perhaps there's something to be discovered along the way.

Warm regards,
Tim (& Jean)

P.S. This past Tuesday Jean went the distance to see patients in Wairoa.  She and others employed by the Hawke's Bay District Health Board ('HBDHB') were flown to the clinic and small hospital that the HBDHB maintains in Wairoa. Here's a picture of the Air Napier plane in which she flew, providing her first experience in what I call a 'puddle jumper'. The experience in the air and in Wairoa was a good one.

6.P Air Napier Piper PA31 Navajo

6.Q Air Traffic Control Tower @ Hawke's Bay Airport