Thursday 30 March 2017

Turn left

Back in early February, my good friend Chris offered to save me from my housebound self and take me for a drive.  We decided to head to the west coast as we hadn't lingered when we'd been there a few weeks earlier for a railcart adventure (I'll tell you about that tomorrow perhaps.)

When going west, at the end of our road we come to a T junction and I've formed the habit of turning right there, and taking the road out to State Highway 14 which runs between Dargaville on the west coast and Whangarei.  This day, when we reached the junction instead of automatically saying "Turn right", I hesitated and we debated where the road might lead if we turned left.  It wasn't much of a debate, we turned left, we both like to explore.

We were both very happy with that decision.  As so often happens another world opened before us that you don't even imagine when traveling the main highways.  Wide open, rolling countryside.  It was very dry (we've had good rain since then).



We could see the Northern Wairoa River winding it's way through the valley below.


As we came down out of the hills we were intrigued to see the bridge over the Northern Wairoa from a totally different angle to that which we usually see.  I thought it looked quite elegant.


Our arrival in Dargaville was time perfectly for lunch.  We parked ourselves in the Blah Blah Blah Cafe, had a delicious lunch and had a good old catch up.


Then it was time to decide where to head next.  When you're so close to the coast, the beach in the obvious choice and Glinks Gully was our pick that day.

No, hold on a minute, first we went to the hill on which the Maritime Museum sits and got a couple of shots looking down over the town. Away in the distance are my hills of home.


and in the other direction south towards Tokatoka (that little sharp peak to the right of the shot) and the road to Pouto where once I lived many years ago.



Glinks Gully is a small seaside community of colourful baches. seaside cottages and fresh sea breezes.  It was a beautiful day, warm but a bit windy which meant all my photos are a bit hazy from the sea spray.  





The view was better from up amongst the houses hugging the beach hillsides.


8 comments:

  1. Nothing like a good friend and you had some beautiful views on top of it all!

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  2. What a gorgeous day that must have been. There is nothing like a stretch of windy beach.

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  3. So nice to have such a day to share with a friend!

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  4. The Blah, Blah, Blah Café, what a great name!
    OH, those beaches...just gorgeous!!

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  5. Huge SIGH. I always loved our safaris because I rarely knew where we were going to end up.

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  6. Beautiful landscapes - thanks for sharing. And I LOVE that hazy wet beach photo with the two people "walking on water".

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  7. Seeing folks on the beech in swimsuits is quite inspiring.

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  8. What a nice trip you took with your friend. Some great views. I think I would have really enjoyed the beach, that's my kind of a place to visit.

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