Otaki beach, north of Wellington, New Zealand, is a wonderfully inspiring place to visit. It is often blustery, a wide swathe of log-strewn sand backed by grassy dunes.
This beach carries the tales of two peoples. In the early 1820s, Maori surged up and down it, migrating or going to war. It was the road by which the fearsome Ngati Toa chief Te Rauparaha arrived in the southern North Island. It was the route he took in his forays to attack the people of the southern Manawatu. And it was where war parties came in their quest to hunt him down, though he sat safe in his island refuge of Kapiti.
Otaki beach on a blustery October day, 2012, Kapiti island in the distance. I took this at approx 18 mm – you can see the spherical distortions.
Later this same beach was a highway for settlers. It was here in 1850 that Donald McLean intercepted the Lieutenant-Governor, John Eyre, and rode with him for a few hours, sorting out the deal that gave McLean a state salary and set the wheels in motion for the first big government purchases in Hawke’s Bay. A political discussion that shaped the history of New Zealand’s settler world – played out, right here on this beach.
I took this picture of Otaki beach in October 2009. No tilt-shift gimmickry here; this is what came out of a 200mm lens stopped down to 5.6.
Even the name of the place carries inspiration. Otaki means variously ‘the place of a staff stuck into the ground’ or ‘the place of the yellow-eyed mullet’.
Most of the detritus on the beach is swept down the Otaki river. I found this stump in the middle of the river-mouth lagoon in 2009.
It is inspiring to walk where others have walked – to hear the crashing of the breakers and feel the wind-blown sand, hear the hiss of the wind through the grasses by the sandy edge. It is a place to contemplate, a place to think, a place to feel the memories. A place that fuels new ideas, new perspectives. An inspiring place for writers.
Do you ever visit a beach that inspires you?
Copyright © Matthew Wright 2012
I’m reading about your beaches while looking out at snow. I spent New Year’s 2001 on a beach north of Auckland. It was a fantastic holiday. Happy writing, eh!
We’ve just emerged from winter…kind of prefer the beaches just now, but later summer will get a bit hot & the idea of snow will be more appealing by about February, except we only get rain.
Incidentally, which beach? Most of them ended up as sets for ‘Xena Warrior Princess’ or ‘Legend of the Seeker’. The one or two that didn’t are used for reality surf rescue TV instead (“sorry, will you just jump in and half drown yourself again, we missed the shot…”)
Weird how it’s only Canadians and Kiwis who use eh, eh!
[...] read a post by Matthew Wright about Otaki beach in New Zealand, and a writer’s inspiration . . . and that made me want to [...]
Matthew – you inspired me to post over on my blog about a place that inspires me to write. Thank you for the great piece. Although my place is far from a beach, it definitely inspires me to consider all those who walked the same ground. Thanks for posting this!