Anniversary Weekend at Kaiaua

We had Monday off for Auckland Anniversary Day this week, so we went to a place called Kaiaua for the weekend. It is about 1½ hours away, on the Firth of Thames. 

It is one of the places where the godwits come too, after their long flight from the Arctic where they breed. They have the record for the longest, non stop flight. The area is called the Sea Bird Coast. It is full of wading and beach birds. We saw shags, godwits, dotterels, pied oyster catchers and black oyster catchers.

It is a very nice spot, even though the tide goes out a long way, so swimming and kayaking can only be done 2 hours either side of high tide.

We had a couple of fish meals. Eddie went out in the kayak every morning. The area is a breeding place for a lot of fishes, so he was a bit frustrated by the little hammer head sharks and snapper fishes he caught. He paddled out about 3 ks, so he had a good work out.

We slipped into retired mode very easily, so we haven't lost our touch of spending the day keeping busy and wondering where the day went at 4 pm. We can't wait to do it again.

When we walked on the beach, we took a bread bag with us and filled it up with rubbish off the beach. We filled 2 bags up. Quite amazing when we only walked on a small piece of a beach. 

 This is the view from our front door, looking left and right

Selfie on a walk on afternoon. It was very windy.

A little stream coming on to the beach

We couldn't have got closer too the beach if we had tried.

This was the view behind us. Very dry as there has been no rain.

There are lots of birds. These are shags.

Eddie relaxing after a swim.