This post’s featured image includes the father-daughter co-stars of #9 in this series,
I took this post’s photo half an hour earlier, at 10.19 am, just after we had parked the car, and just before we headed down to our favourite “secret beach”.
It is immediately east of Anvil Beach.
Mid-morning on 16 February 2025 was “singular” in several respects..
On no other occasion had we seen the sea so flat, off Anvil Beach.
Never before had the car park been so “full”.
And we saw a seal…which had everyone’s approval!
To our knowledge, this “secret” beach has no name.
My beloved and I had been here many times, over more than two decades.
We were horrified/mock-“horrified” to see four vehicles were already-parked…and another one arrived before we began to walk down to Anvil Beach, then scramble our way across to the “secret beach”.
Quelle horreur!
(on many occasions, ours had been the only vehicle, and we had never previously shared the car park with more than two other vehicles)
By 11 am, across the strands and shallows of the “secret beach” and Anvil Beach, as many as 15 humans were present…spread across circa 2 kilometres.
Never before had we seen these sands so “over-crowded”!
Of course, they were not crowded at all, and nobody was doing anything noisy, silly or obnoxious.
The likely question any first-time foreign visitor would have been asking:
On this perfect beach day, how on earth could such an easily-accessed, absolutely splendid place be so “deserted”?
If you have a good look at both the Google Earth “satellite view”, and at my “clifftop view, you can see what makes the “secret beach” so special.
I suggest you enlarge/zoom in on the “satellite view”.
You can see that most vegetation is intact, that there are no “resorts”, no shops.
You can also see why most of Anvil Beach’s waters are very dangerous (the image shows a non-“angry” ocean, but you can see obviously-powerful, obviously-complex wave action) ; along most of its length one should not – ever – try to swim.
However, look at the reefs, just offshore, at the eastern end of Anvil Beach, and then extending past the little rocky point, and along the “secret beach”.
Between the secret beach and the reef are perfectly-protected, oft-sandy-bottomed shallows.
These afford safe wading, swimming, and fishing, in an idyllic location, even on days when the far side of those reefs is enormously “bigger” and more turbulent than was the case on the morning of 16 February.
More often than not, any wader, swimmer or fisher will be the only person present in the relevant “pool”.
#11 in this series will offer a couple of closer views, from the secret beach..& in #12 you will get a glimpse of the aforementioned seal.
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