Tongaporutu - part 3

The front beach is a place filled with memories for me from my own childhood and from taking our kids around there, as well as taking friends there when they visited.

But mainly the river was the focus.

Day two:
After the walk around the front beach - timed to coincide with low tide - we decided to walk down to the former family baches.

Baches are only on the south side of the river. However, on the western side of State Highway 3 (SH3) closer to the river mouth, the land is all leasehold, and people own the baches but not the land. Their baches are perched between the riverbank and the road. The land was originally gifted to the council for roading, and I am unsure when the first baches were established there, but they were all there when we first started coming up in 1954.

On the eastern side of SH3, the land is all freehold, and the sections are significantly bigger. The Hill family who farmed that land and ran the Tongaporutu Store, subdivided it into about 22 sections in about 1956, I think. Most baches were built in the next few years, and many of them have been extended in the years since. One of them is currently being replaced - and the new house (definitely NOT a bach) has underfloor heating and double glazed windows - sheer luxury! I bet everyone will have to take their shoes off to go in there ...

The walk between the bach and the beach is over a kilometre, but doesn't feel that long because it is all so familiar and interesting. There did used to be the danger of crossing SH3 - quite dangerous because drivers see it as a long straight to be sped down and used as an overtaking place. And the access from the steeply sloped but short pathways meant as a pedestrian you popped up right on to the roadside ... So in the last year, a public footpath has been established that goes under the bridge for safety, and gives the public access to the riverbank in front of all the baches on the eastern side - it's the Queen's Chain, a 22 yard strip of land that most bach owners didn't necessarily consider theirs but that they do use and keep mown or planted.

At the junction in the path - to my left it goes under the bridge; to my right it gows down in front of the baches; behind me it goes to Hill's Road and in front of the hall, and Corrick's old bach where the famous fridge was installed 60 years ago ...

To the bridge

(Almost) under the bridge - I feel a Bears in the Night moment coming on ... (look it up if the reference isn't familiar - Berenstein Bears - one of my favourite kids' books ever!)

Through the bridge, looking downstream.

Looking upstream. See the mudflats? Icky, sticky, mud between the toes, little crabs trying to escape under your feet ...

Back to the CROW for a healthy breakfast. Dee, note the tea-cosy!