The beach…
I’m one of the lucky ones… I grew up in a small coastal community on the south east outskirts of Auckland, New Zealand, with access to a number of beaches. Several of those beaches were within walking distance and all of them were easily accessible if you got lucky with the tide. Starting at a mostly muddy Shelley Park Beach, around to still muddy Cockle Bay, continue on around the coast till you had to climb up and over the rocks and past the old Fencible hut to Howick Beach (look out if the tide was in… 🫣), along the sand to the hard and slippery tesselated rocks, back to sandy, muddy Mellons Bay and on to through the same to Eastern Beach.
Depending where the tide was at you might have to stick with climbing over the larger rocks at the base of the cliff, back onto sand and pebbles, and up to the rocks again, or balancing your way around the edge of the cliff just out of reach of the water.
The sections before, during and after the tessalated sections were solid rock, I confirmed that many times till I figured out how to balance myself while navigating those sections. It really hurt to underestimate their slippiness.
When I see rocks that look similar now, I’m alert and fully focused; so it was with care and caution that I wandered out to the water’s edge and the surfaces touched by the water while up at Gladstone Bay over the holiday break. The tide came in a lot further the last time I was up there.
Wandering out to the water’s edge in my jandals (thongs if you’re Australian, flip flops if you’re from anywhere else except NZ) I stepped carefully, half expecting to fall on my butt at any time. I was surprised to find the rock-like beach surface was spongy and a little bit squishy, nothing like the solid base I anticipated. The only solid parts I found were small areas of tumbled stones, their sharpness eroded any by time and tide.
Sweet! I thought, and kicked off my jandals, leaving them a fair way back from the water’s edge so they didn’t float away. (probably not the wisest thing to do on an Australian beach 😏)
I loved the feel of the squishiness on the sole of my feet, it was a bit like walking through a foot spa… warm and gentle 😄 Having had a couple of things surgically removed from a foot last year, that particular foot thought it was in heaven!
Exploring further up to beach instead of driving, I was happy to find the whole beach seemed to be made up of the soft, slightly squishy texture, Im guessing its a natural effect of the geological processes of the region.
With the summer heat (seriously, what was I thinking?) getting into the water was wonderful! Warm, but cooler than the air, I swam almost everyday. I didn’t need to go out too far - it’s the other side of Shark Bay after all - mid calf was the perfect height to lay down in the water and enjoy the buoyancy of the waters of Shark Bay... it was absolutely blissful…