Kayaking on the Lagoon and meeting Whitebaiters
Tuesday 6 October
Our alarm call was the two campground HonkWah ducks pottering around outside Banjo.
We pottered gently, hoping that the sun would break through - which it did briefly, then faded away. Around 10.30 we headed down to the boat ramp by the old wharf, inflated the Razor kayak and set off up the Ōkārito River towards the lagoon.
It was a couple of hours before low tide so the water wasn’t super deep in places, but on the other hand there was less chance of us being washed out over the bar! We paddled strongly upstream in search of some sunshine - following the kayak’s nose up the Ōkārito River and towards the Lagoon. We diverted a little way up Deep Creek to the southwest then panicked that we might get stranded if it wasn’t that deep at low tide, so headed back towards the lagoon. We almost grounded by the wee island as it was anyway!
The silty waters of the lagoon created a very reflective surface. Covering around 8000 acres it is NZ’s largest unmodified coastal wetland and estuary lagoon and is home to over 70 species of birdlife. This area is famous for the breeding ground for kōtuku, white heron, which are one of NZ’s rarest native birds(population 150-200), featured on the $2 coin and revered by Maori. They breed further up the coast at the Waitangiroto River but feed around the lagoon - and as we were heading back we spotted a beauty feeding by the river bank. Sadly I only had my phone so it was impossible to capture a good image - but, oh, what a privilege to see one out in nature.
We got back at twice the speed of our outward journey as the water pulled us rapidly down stream, and we steered in behind the old wharf to land in safety. The tide was way further out and we didn't fancy wading through slippery mud. Chatted to a fellow camper as we packed up as he was interested in our Razor kayak, then we took it home to Banjo to dry in what little sunshine we had.
Lunch back at Banjo, a siesta, then we took a late afternoon walk on the beach, round to the estuary for a chat with some visiting whitebaiters. They were such characters and were pretty peeved that they’d only caught about 20 of the little critters in an hour! The tide was rushing into the river mouth providing ideal whitebaiting conditions, but still no luck. Our mates were amateurs compared to the guys over the river who had huts and buildings in place for their white baiting season. We also watched the cormorants drying out on the far bank, such elegant birds.
We walked up the estuary to the old Ōkārito Wharf as the tide came in slowly around it, past the old metal capped posts at the entrance to the lagoon boat ramp, and back down the main drag. Ōkarito is quite a tiny place - as you can see from the hand drawn map in one of the windows. But our favourite poster was for "Who ya gonna call?
Gorse Busters!" - “Keeping Aotearoa beautiful one prick at a time”!!! 😆
Fascinated by the lacework in the old harakeke leaves - one of our followers explained that the outside notches are from the native "flax notcher caterpillar" of a noctuid moth. And the windows in the centre are from the "window geometer caterpillar" of a flax looper moth. Nature is quite incredible!
Back at Banjo we cooked juicy pork chops and veggies for dinner - I think they were the last of our freezer stock up from Wānaka… need to hit another New World soon (Four Square and On The Spot are too limited and way to pricey out along the West Coast!
I finished the day with another boogie - this time to Scotland’s greatest hits. 🏴
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