Beached As 🦭 - Opau Bay cleanup

Kia ora beach people!

This is the organisational email for our Opau Bay Cleanup this Sunday. I wanted to send this through to give you all a run down of how we’re getting there, what the route is, and how the survey + audit process works. 

SCHEDULE: 

9:00 - 9:15 - meet at the gear shed on Kelburn campus 

Here we'll sort out the cars, aiming to leave before 9:30. 

10:00 - arrive at Makara

We'll assemble in the carpark next to the beach. Here we’ll split up some of the sampling gear before setting out for the walk. 

10:00 - 12:00 - wander over the hill to Opau Bay. 

I’ve attached a map later in this email so you can all have a squiz at the route. It tends to take somewhere between 1½ - 2 hours to get over the hill to Opau Beach. We’ll probably stop for lunch at the gun emplacement if the weather is pleasant, and take in the views of water and windmills. 

Low tide is on 12. 

12:00 - 1:00 - CLEANUP TIME. Here’s the good bit, the conservation work. 

Once we arrive at the beach, we’re going to stake out some GPS coordinates and set up a survey area. When that area has been marked with stakes, we set a timer and crack into it. All of us will pilfer this section for rubbish, and collect it all in burlap sacks that we’ll take back to the gear shed at the end of the day. 

1:00 onwards - Back to campus 

We will walk back to the carpark after this. If the coast is clear, we’ll walk back via the beach rather than over the hill. Have a look at the map i’ve attached, this route tends to be a lot faster for the return. 

We get back to the cars, and return to kelburn campus to run the audit! For those not in the know, the audit is essentially a count of all the types of rubbish we have collected, which then goes into the Sustainable Coastlines database. We’re going to do this inside of the student union building, in the room next to the theatre where we used to run meetings. 

OTHER DETAILS

Cars

At the moment we have 5 people with cars signed up to this trip: Siru, Nathan, Laura, Alex, and Christopher. 

If you have a car and plan to bail please let me know. Otherwise, I’ll add more people from the waitlist who are keen to come. 

Also please bring a gold coin for your driver. Petrol is astronomically expensive as we all know. 

What to bring

• Lunch for yourself
• Something warm & a windproof layer, the coast at Opau is very exposed, and nothing is worse than a cold trip 
• Gold coin for your driver
• Sturdy shoes (we’ll be walking over lots of driftwood and logs to collect the rubbish). 

We’ll provide you all with gloves and funky pink fluro when we get to the beach. 

(Also the brave souls are welcome to bring togs along for a quick swim somewhere, it’ll probably be freezing but maybe it’ll boost immunity) 

I’ve attached maps below, if you have any other questions, flick me an email.

-       Xanthe

Meet at the gear shed at 

A map of our route over to Opau Bay