Waikawa Newsletter February 2023
Kia ora koutou kātoa,
how lucky we have been at Waikawa Beach. In all the terrible flooding, landslips and loss of life in the north and east of the North Island we escaped with a somewhat windy, rainy day.
Others not so far away have been flooded and that’s led to a Regional Advisory about swim spots and not gathering kai moana:
As a result of Cyclone Gabrielle affecting the regions rivers, a temporary unsuitable for swimming status has been assigned to swim spots in the region.
Stay out of rivers following heavy and prolonged rainfall (wait a minimum of 72 hours). All flood waters should be treated as contaminated and should be avoided.
That maybe doesn’t really apply to us at the moment, but the river was looking very muddy and foamy yesterday.
It’s hard to imagine what natural disaster could force us from our homes at Waikawa Beach with little warning — perhaps a tsunami or a fire? (See below for some further thoughts on this.) After hearing someone on the radio saying she had 30 minutes to grab what she could and get out of her home I started thinking about what I’d grab. That led me to locate an unused backpack and add some essential personal items in case of emergency. That included knowing exactly where my passport and other vital papers are, and having some cash on hand too.
On 15 February 2023 we had a big earthquake close to us that rattled quite a few people. At one point it was judged to be a 6.3 but the latest info puts it at a 6. I’m not aware of any damage, beyond quite a few racing hearts. Good thing it was quite deep — 54 Km.
Otherwise Waikawa Beach has been pretty quiet.
Horizons Regional Council are trying to find where freshwater mussels live. Let them know if you’ve found them in the Waikawa River or other spots around here.
Meanwhile, one of NZ’s severely threatened Matuku-hūrepo (Australasian bittern) was seen strolling around and foraging in the vicinity of 171 Strathnaver Drive. These birds are facing an immediate high risk of extinction, and yet here at the beach we host one (some local residents have seen two together).
It pays to keep your eyes open. I was only lucky enough to spot this extremely cryptic bird because a friend alerted me to where it was.
If you’re keeping your eyes open, look up! A dozen or so of us who like to occasionally look at the night sky are planning a get together for a casual hour of viewing on a Friday or Saturday night later in March. It’s Equinox on Tuesday 21 March 2023, so the weekend of 24 and 25 would be a good time to see what’s going on in the sky.
We’re hoping for fine weather, of course. It won’t be dark until around 8.30 pm, but you won’t need to bring anything except warm clothes, and if you have them, binoculars. Email admin@wow-waikawa.nz if you want to make sure to be updated on the exact date, time and place to meet.
And if you’ve been looking down you’ll have noticed that the spinifex and pīngao planted in the last half of last year have been growing really well. Some of the new dunes near the north track off Reay Mackay Grove are now more than head height.
News just in from NZTA about the SH1 Ōtaki to Ohau safety improvements:
We are working to finalise the schedule for the construction of the safety improvements on State Highway 1 between the end of the Peka Peka to Ōtaki expressway and Ohau. At this stage, we are likely to be out on site within the next month. We’ll provide you with a full schedule about this construction in the next project update.
For those who enjoy a bit of a bike ride, the HDC gave us bike stands by the footbridge in June 2022. They’ve been well-used over the summer.
However, the Roading Manager at the time promised road markings to make it clear to cars where not to park by the bike stands, and also further stands on Reay Mackay Grove and Manga Pirau Street.
Time has gone by, so I recently followed up, and received this response from the HDC Enquiries desk:
I have just checked the job 220350. Hiren one of our Roading Engineers left the following note 14 February 2023: I will visit the site for road markings near footbridge and inform our contractor to do so soon if it requires. The bike stands at end of Manga Pirau Street and Reay MacKay Grove are expected to install by end of June-2023.
Could Waikawa Beach flood?
After writing above about what kind of event could drive us from our homes at Waikawa Beach I did some additional thinking and research. One answer is that in fact we are extremely vulnerable to flooding: the Waikawa Beach settlement could easily be completely cut off.
This topic is worthy of a blog post in its own right and I plan to pull my research and information together over the next few days. Be sure to check the website or sign up for email updates to read that blog post when it’s published. It might be a bit long.
The photo above shows flooding at the corner of Takapu Road and Waikawa Beach Road, December 2014. Since then work has been done to alleviate this problem.
The WaikawaNews website has moved
The new WaikawaNews website is at https://waikawanews.nz. All new posts appear only there and not at the old site. I’m still moving the 350 or so previous posts from the old sites. I’m working from newest to oldest and have less than 200 to go. Whew!
Hightide — Waikawa News posts by email
This newsletter is monthly. If you’d like to receive posts by email as they are published subscribe to the Hightide mailing list. Note: I send those emails manually, it’s not yet automated, so it’s possible I may forget sometimes.
If you know of Waikawa Beach things that would interest others or if you have comments on this newsletter or the websites please let me know at news@wow-waikawa.nz.
If you want to suggest others subscribe to the newsletter please send them to this new address: https://waikawanews.nz/about.
Thanks everyone for the support. I’ve had a lot of great feedback recently on my newsletters. I really appreciate that.
Links
- Bike stands update, February 2023
- Don’t gather kai moana after storms
- A big shake on 15 February 2023
- Like to join us to look at stars in late March 2023?
- HRC want to know where the freshwater mussels are
- The Strathnaver Bittern
Me te aroha,
Miraz Jordan
WaikawaNews: https://waikawanews.nz