Our daily beach migration includes passing several oyster catcher couples. In general, they look at us with sideways glances out of their curiously orange eyes and call out a mix of hello and please keep your distance.

One pair vehemently shares with us they are extremely less eager to allow for our trespass. Their squawking is full-on aggressive and they’ll take flight to dive bomb if we come too close to what must be their nest. Like perhaps within 5 feet, which is really close, guys, and enough to get our exceptionally larger and more powerful bodies to give them quite a wide berth. Think a scene from The Birds. With the tide pretty high this AM, it turned into wading into water far enough so the incoming waves splashed to mid thigh.

At night and with a late rising moon resulting in the kind of darkness that showcases the countless stars of the Milky Way, and several breaks of laying on the sands to take it in, for most of the journey we are surrounded by their piercing sounds, wondering when they’ll finally get physical.

The heat has made for lots of swimming, sometimes more than once on that aforementioned morning walk. The waves are at times pretty mild, sometimes the right size for a fun time diving under where they crash, and often too large and powerful for risking swimming past. Or maybe it is actually the short period or maybe how quickly they collapse? Or some magic formula. Whatever it is, if there are waves at the south end, we can be confident they’ll only increase in magnitude as we continue north.

The afternoon swim is in the brackish waters of Kaitoke Stream, which empties a relatively short distance further into the ocean at the north end of the beach. Higher tide = colder water, which is a hint of the ocean temperatures at the present. It’s lovely to head with M J and Mme Awesome to the green place, currently the right point to turn around.

Tomorrow is Mme Awesome’s turn spinning tracks with M J on the weekly Half and Half Aotea FM show. 7 PM here in NZ. Check it out!