Vents and blowholes

This evening Mum and I took the kids on a short walk from Mau haulepu Beach over the headland to the final cove along the trail.  The cliffs are lithified sand eroded by the waves into sharp outlines and crags.  The beach was deserted by strewn with driftwood and a surprising amount of small plastic pieces.

Up on the cliff path I was startled by a loud grumbling woosh.  It was a vent hole!   With each wave a noisy burst of air blew sand and noise out through the crack in the sand.  We all placed our hands over it and felt the surge of wind.  It sounded like an animal.

Spouting horn, a blowhole a few miles from our house.

Later, the kids threw old coconuts off the cliff into the sea and watched them bob away in the big swells.

On the way home we met two local fishermen carrying long bamboo poles and cool-boxes on their backpacks.   I asked them what fish they were after and they explained they were hand pole-fishing for lobster which come out onto the rocky shelves below the cliffs at night. 

Coming back to the car, we passed a cordoned section of beach where an endangered Monk Seal was sleeping on the beach.  The kids crept up and watched it from behind the signed off area.  Frost wanted a picture but we didn't have a camera.