I have always been a firm believer in the importance of putting a bit of fear in one's life. Fear can give you much needed perspective and remind you that although we are fragile creatures, we are also resilient and possess an impressive desire to survive. It can be very revealing to put yourself in uncertain and challenging circumstances (as long as you leave yourself a few escape possibilities). To a large extent, fear seems to go hand-in-hand with exploring the unknown.So on that note I came up with my latest adventure within Dunedin city limits: a ~7km coastal traverse from Smails Beach to Sandfly Bay.
From aerial photos and the few bits and pieces I have seen, I knew it would almost certainly be rougher than the other coastline traverses I have done around Dunedin (this proved true). That said, it is really hard to know what you are in for as the coastline can be deceiving. From best we could tell the hardest part seemed to be near Smails Beach, so we made the [later confirmed to be wise] decision to start at Smails Beach and head east. This also put the swell slightly to our advantage and gave us a better chance of hitching a ride back to our car if we made it to Sandfly Bay.
Very quickly after leaving Smails Beach we found ourselves staring at a cove with blank overhanging walls with a small sea cave at the back. The swell was about as rough as we could want it. The only real choice was to swim about 60m to a large prominent island where we could hopefully time a wave to help ease us up onto it. From here we would at least be able to see the next portion of coast. So after a fair bit of procrastinating, I jumped in and swam for the island. Despite my grippy canyoning shoes turning into brick-like clogs when I have to swim, all went well and I signaled for Callum to follow. From the top of this island (which incidentally is the best cliff jump I have seen around Dunedin), we could see we would have to swim about 100m to a place where we might be able to get out. With an 8m jump in, there was not going to be much turning back, but off we went into the deep blue-green water.
Above: View from above Smails Beach looking along the coastline traversed. Furthest headland is at the far side of Sandfly Bay (conditions are calmer than when we traversed).
Getting out required careful timing of the waves. Essentially you want a wave to lift you up at which point you grab on to the highest seaweed attached to the rock, try and find a place underneath you to put a foot, and hopefully have a strong enough hold on the slippery seaweed to pull yourself out of the water. In the best scenario this works exceedingly well. Failed attempts or set waves usually resulted in a bit of thrashing. Callum had a particularly noteworthly attempt where the wave threw him up onto the shore platform, spun him around 180°, and then slide him head first back into the ocean. Because of the abundant seaweed, he came out of it remarkably unscathed, except for a bone-deep gash in his thumb which bleed profusely. "Shark bait" we both thought as we looked ahead at several more long swims we would have to do.
We continued on, getting exhausted by the large amount of swimming with shoes and fighting interfering waves. Very happily we eventually reached a boulder-laden coastline free of swimming and climbing obstacles as far as we could see. It had just taken us 2 hours to go about 1km, 500m of which was swimming. We continued on largely without incident, trying our best not to disturb seals or penguins. We reached Boulder Beach and continued on. At this point the sun finally emerged from the Dunedin clag and soon we were roasting in our wetsuits. We plopped in every tide pool we encountered to cool off.
Looking back at Boulder Beach and the coastline we came from
Cooling off
Here the coastline finally became more varied as we past several small and beautiful little beaches, one with a waterfall dropping right onto it. We past a large colony of seals at a choice spot on one of these beaches. Between the beaches we found many rocky headlands with some fun bouldering, occasionally with waves dramatically blowing up and all around us. Then from the main headland before Sandfly Bay to the beach itself, things got interesting again. We were unsure whether we would be able to make it, but after coming so far, we were determined to try. This proved to be the most challenging rock climbing traverse of the trip and was good fun. The waves here were very dramatic and there were several places where we had to carefully time them or almost certainly get blown off the rock. With only a couple hundred meters to go I decided to jump in and ride the waves in to the beach. I quickly realized this was an unfortunate decision as I was in a strong rip tide sucking me out to sea despite the incoming waves. I rode the crest of a wave up high onto a rock. From here I was able to get back on track and traverse the cliff base to the beach, albeit with a 50m penalty. We were fortunate to receive a hitch from the carpark to the top of the hill. We ended up walking all the way back to my car at Smails Beach, but both agreed the temperature was absolutely perfect for it. It was a great adventure I will probably never do again! Thanks to Callum.
This is when seconds matter
The home stretch
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