A lovely trip to the beach

Martin and I are trying to stay within 2-3km of home (as the crow flies) at the moment due to the Covid-19 lockdown situation.  That rules out both my usual beaches - but Martin noticed there was another one!  At the base of the Pt. Chevalier peninsula is a tiny park called Eric Armishaw Park - and from there you can walk along the coast of the peninsula at low tide.

Today I biked there (3.3km) and walked 20 min along the beach, which took me as far the as the sailing club's boat ramp.

It was lovely!  Such a classic Kiwi beach :-)

view from the park itself - towards the NorthWestern motorway between Waterview and Te Atatu

also from the park, looking along the peninsula

there were lots of these cool pitted rocks - and interesting rock pools and oysters, too

a wee mangrove starting out

shell art on the rock wall - presumably by the folk in the house above (or their predecessors!)

just gorgeous!

I loved the low-hanging trees.  And they'd be stunning in summer - all pohutakawas :-)

many people had built their own private beach access

I loved all the tiny washed out caves.  The colours on this one were particularly neat.

The ground underfoot all the way was a bit muddy.  I'd been being super-careful, as we're supposed to be avoiding contact with emergency services right now if possible.  So I'd walked on the shells where possible and the soft mud where it wasn't (the hard muddy surfaces were by far the slippery-est).  But, after walking up the steps to the sailing club and having a wander around, I (foolishly) decided to walk down their boat ramp without a care in the world.  It turned out that was quite slippery too.  I skidded over and thought I'd grazed my knee.  When I got back home, I discovered I'd actually split an 18mm gash across my kneecap.

We could push the edges closed..

But initially couldn't make it stay shut.  So we phoned the GP and told them I had a cut we thought might need stitches.  Whilst waiting for a call-back, Martin found information on the internet about making a butterfly strap dressing out of tape.  He put that on and it closed nicely.  The GP was most impressed :-)  So I just need to go easy on it and keep it dry for 24 hours and it should be fine.

 Still a lovely morning, and I'll definitely be going back some time :-)