Karitane-Warrington Coast July 1

What can I say, I had been working hard and was in desperate need to ditch school. I decided to traverse the coastline from Karitane to Warrington, a distance of about 12km, and then hopefully hitch a ride back to start. Despite topo maps and Google Earth images, I was still largely unsure of what I was getting myself into. Armed with a wetsuit, canyoning shoes, drybags and a bit of common sense, I set off south. Travel was good in most places, with lots of boulder hopping. Unfortunately I quickly managed to lose my printed maps, which would have helped me keep track of the geology and my progress along the coast.

Thanks to good planning I reached the hardest headland just as low tide peaked. This was a rocky 100m long headland heavily dissected by vertical-walled fissures. I started to climb up and around these obstacles but realized there was no immediate way to get back down beyond. So I went back to the start and put on my wetsuit. I had to start by traversing on pretty challenging rock, with my feet just above the crashing waves. Seaweed holdfasts made quick and desperate footholds between good rock holds. After this I had to swim or wade across several gaps. Here I spent considerable time learning the timing of the waves and waiting for my opening. It took me about a half hour to go these 100m!

The coastline then relinquished itself and soon I found myself back in the sandstone where I found three small sea caves up to 30m long, some with delicate formations and graffiti dating to 1951. Further on I passed several large landslide deposits. There was much more basalt and volcanics than I was expecting which generally made for more challenging coastline. Several portions of coast required me to carefully climb over or under house-sized boulders. These sections were really enjoyable with good rock to hold onto and many interesting features including tidal rapids, squeezes, swims, gap jumps and chimney climbs. Encountering cornered sea lions underneath boulders was enough to get the blood rushing. At one point I came across an entire cliff and shore platform of columnar basalt, some of the finest I had ever seen. Shortly before sunset I reached the sandy Warrington Beach and walked the streets up to Coast Road where I eventually caught a ride back to Karitane from a lovely Maori lady as the sun set. It was a good adventure and a more interesting stretch of coast than I would have guessed.




Start of the interesting headland


Boulders are larger than they appear