Murder's Beach

There's a beach near Dunedin called Murder's Beach. I don't know how it got its name, but I'd heard from several people it was beautiful. So the other day after dinner, Dave and I took advantage of the long evening light to go and find it. Here's a view from above.

Here's another view from above, with the obligatory sheep in the foreground.

And here's a view of the gravel road we had to drive down to get to the beach, with our wonderful Honda in the foreground. One of the amazing things about South Island beaches is how often you are the only person there.

We didn't get any good shots of the beach from close up, because the clouds got heavier and there wasn't good light. But we took a detour on the way to the beach and got a wonderful view of the mouth of Otago Harbour. The beach in the view below is Aramoana Beach. On Dave's first day in Dunedin, a friend drove us out to see that beach, and we've never been back. We'll need to remedy that.

The next photo shows the view just left of the previous photo. That's Taiaroa Head with its funny little lighthouse poking up. Below the lighthouse, on those cliffs, is where the albatrosses nest, the only albatross breeding area that's on any kind of mainland. From that viewpoint, with Dave's binoculars we could see albatrosses wheeling around the headland. That gives you an idea of how big those birds are.