New Zealand’s biggest spit is big, even if Australia’s biggest – the star of #3 in this series – is circa four times longer, and rather more massive.
Farewell Spit is the northernmost tip of NZ’s South Island.
As mentioned in the previous post, a spit is a highly dynamic landform; this is especially so if much of that spit is low-lying, bare sand.
At low tide, Farewell Spit’s “above water” length comfortably exceeds thirty kilometres.
At high tide, or during some storms, it is well shy of thirty kilometres; much of its far end then becomes a submerged sandbar.
My photo was taken at 6.10 pm in July 2010; it looks across from Terra firma to Farewell Spit’s firmest, tallest, best vegetated, most stable section.
Had I been looking down from a satellite or a high-flying plane, Farewell Spit’s appearance would have been altogether more singular.
Perth has its own “big” spit; it currently reaches more than halfway across one of the wider sections of the Swan – a large estuary, around which Perth is wrapped.
The spit at Point Walter (on the southern shore of the Swan River) is currently more than one kilometre long.
It is often possible for a barefooted, shorts-wearing human to walk almost the entire length, safely, without getting those shorts wet.
Objectively, Point Walter’s spit is of “modest” size when compared to the Younghusband Peninsula or Farewell Spit.
However, to anyone who walks onto it, this spit looks and feels “very big”.
It is also very beautiful, and rich in birdlife…as you can see in the second of a pair of 2020-vintage Pelican Yoga posts.
This link will take you to the first one; I suggest you first see & read it, then click the “Next Post” prompt at bottom of its page. The second post has multiple images.
This series’ next destination is only a very short distance away from the start of Farewell Spit.
On the above Google Earth image, immediately left of Farewell Spit, you can see the word “Puponga”.
The beach in front of Puponga is very special.
Chances are excellent that your feet have not walked its “remote” sands.
However, if you are one of the umpteen million users of a certain Microsoft operating system, you very probably have (countless times) seen an “iconic” photograph which was taken from those sands.
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