Kali Rietcheck: Castle Point!

It’s been awhile since I’ve had an opportunity to update my travels…obviously. There was extremely limited internet access at Castle Point. In fact, there was extremely limited access to everything! There was only one store, with very limited stock, one restaurant/pub with limited hours, and less than 20 permanent residents. The rest of visitors to Castle Point are people who come for weekends or holidays to their batches [really small holiday homes]. Being winter, it is the off season for such a place, making it virtually empty.

Our bunk house [complete with living room, kitchen, and beds for 24] sat just across the road from the bay. There wasn’t much beach, mostly rocks. It was surrounded on one side by misty mountains, and the other by a lighthouse.

The time spent at Castle Point was to be spent much like time would be spent at a writing retreat: writing. The majority of our assignments were due upon our departure. It was a bit sad, sitting inside and working all day when there were adventures to be had, but it turned out ok because it rained nearly every day we were there. This is typical of New Zealand weather though we did also have a chance to experience a southerly—a storm system blown up from Antarctica. You can imagine this means cold weather, though not even close to below freezing. Just cold wind and rain.

One morning Taylor, John and I woke up at 5am and hiked up to the lighthouse to watch the sunrise over the Pacific Ocean. It was beautiful. And windy. Once it was light and the sun was up we decided to hike up Castle Rock. This is a giant rock that sits behind the lighthouse, past a small cove. The climb was a bit treacherous—muddy, thin paths along cliffs and steep edges. But we made it to the top and enjoyed the coast to coast view. I know I’ve already mentioned the wind, but it was WINDY. We truly believed there was a chance we would blow off! The group made another trip up Castle Rock on our last day. It was still windy.

A later adventure took to exploring the reef than exists between the lighthouse and Castle Rock. The reef is shelves of sea rock build up. It is quite dangerous during times of storm or strong wind when rogue waves occur. The apparently sweep people off the rocks and out to see. There was a danger sign complete with a memorial. It was enough to make me see and get the heck out of there!

Besides that, I just made a couple trips up and down the beach looking for interesting things.
We had a couple of group adventures. One afternoon at a bird wildlife center seeing native birds. After all, New Zealand is the land of the birds. There are no native mammals to the islands until they were introduced by humans. Because of this many of the birds on the island evolved to be flightless, like the kiwi. We got to see many of these [including kiwis].

Another afternoon was spent with the owners of Castle Point. The resort we stayed at is actually a very small part of a sheep station. The Crofoot’s are originally from the States, but moved to New Zealand and now own and run this incredibly large sheep station…8500 acres. We drove the length of the station in our vans with the Crofoots. We also saw the wool shed where they shear all of their sheep.

Now, we are back in Wellington for a couple days. We are enjoying great food and art around the city. Tomorrow we leave for 4 days in Rotorua where there are hot springs, bubbling mud, sulfur springs, and lots of tourist activities. These four days were actually planned by the group only last week. I think it is our touristy vacation after all of our writing work from the rest of the trip. We then have 2 days back in Auckland and the fly home.
I’ll keep you updated on the rest of our trip!