Hunt 2016.23
257km
Left at 1am, with the intention of working my way down the coast on the rising tide, doing some grass during high tide and then following the tide down.
That was the plan anyway.
The trip down was awesome with clear skies, except for a huge thunderhead somewhere well south of Whangarei which was lighting up every 30 seconds with some of the most intense strobing I've ever seen in a storm. Was hard to keep my eyes on the road.
Not my photo, but this is exactly what was going on... Fantastic display.
As it turned out, all the beaches were sanded in all the way to Whangarei, so I carried on going and ended up back in the harbour. Helped out where a car had gone off the road - fortunately it was restrained from rolling further into the gully by several strands of good old #8 wire. Occupants were only shaken and stirred and wasn't long before the flashing lights arrived and I could carry on.
Discovered there's a distinct lack of beachfront real estate at high tide around the beaches in Whangarei. Did manage to pull 9 Michael Hill carrots out from under the grass at the edge of the beach which was a surprise given the hammering this area gets from the resident detectors.
Further rummaging in and around the rocks brought out a silver 3d, crusty '55 British sixpence - barely legible but my first one, and a wafer-thin young Vicky shilling, no date and worn down to silver scrap value only.
I followed the tide down for the usual pennies, decimals, trash and grey matter... And Gold #2 :)another 9Ct out of the black ooze under the sand.
Had been on the go for 15Hrs non-stop, so decided to join the traffic jam and head home.
Brought back a couple of interesting sounding clasts to crack open and see what lurks within.
Good to know I can still do 20Hr dayzzzzzzzzzz.... Sleep now.
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