Castlepoint Beach - Wairarapa — Nick Crarer Photography

The plan was to take my surfboard and camera and arrive at 5:30am, 50 minutes before sunrise. I would photograph sunrise and then go for a paddle but as it turned out the surf was messy so I didn’t end up getting in the water. I’ve made the exact same trip many times before, just with my surfboard, only to be disappointed so to take the camera along as well was to guarantee an enjoyable visit to one of my favourite beaches. Castlepoint is such an interesting place that you can almost never be disappointed taking photos there.

I set my alarm for 3am, having packed everything into the car the night before, ready for the early start. The weather forecast was for light winds, 1.6m surf and partly cloudy skies. It sounded perfect for a photo/surf trip. As you can imagine there’s not many cars on the road at 3am so I made good time up and over the Remutaka Hill (555m mountain range pass), a narrow and winding road linking the Hutt Valley with Wairarapa.

In Masterton I usually stop in at the Gull Service Station as it’s the only station in town that is open at that time and allows you to walk into the store and choose what you want to eat, not stand outside and ask the attendant to go and pick what you want from the shelves like other shops. They have a fog canon installed apparently, so don’t think stealing a loaf of bread will be easy! You may get into the store, find the bread and make a dash for the door but as soon as that fog drops you will never make it out..it’s very hard to find your way in zero visibility and I wouldn’t be surprised if the bloke had a nerf gun behind the counter to make things even trickier! A sugar-free energy drink and butter chicken pie in hand, I was ready to make the final hour drive out to the beach.

It was still pretty dark when I arrived at the small seaside village but I could already tell the surf was crap..oh well, photos instead. On a windy day here you can get some fantastic cloud formations and beautiful pastel sunrise colours. Today wasn’t windy but there was a little bit of colour and some little wispy clouds to shoot which brought a brief smile to my face. You always have a tough decision to make when you arrive for sunrise. Do you walk up to the lighthouse and shoot from there? Do you stay on the beach and photograph the lighthouse or Castle Rock from afar or do you make the short-ish but steep walk up to the top of Castle Rock for that classic view back down the beach, over the lagoon and tractors with the lighthouse in the distance?

I’ve been here so many times and shot from so many angles that for me it doesn’t really matter, so I stayed on the beach. If it was my first time there I would probably walk to the top of Castle Rock as that view is iconic. It’s not without its challenges though! A good friend of mine, a couple of years ago, journeyed down the beach to the base of Castle Rock before sunrise and started walking up the concrete steps only to be bitten on the foot and pushed off the steps onto the rocks below by a territorial New Zealand fur seal (males can grow up to 2.5m and 185kg). This hasn’t deterred me from the area but I am very careful when walking the beach pre-dawn now.

Usually if you were at Castlepoint for sunrise you may be the only person there but by the looks of things a camera club had decided to make the trip there too so there were about 10 other photographers on the beach. They pretty much all stood in the same spot with their tripods up and pointed in the same direction so there was still plenty of space for me to get some shots with nobody in them. My top tip: if you’re on location shooting sunrise or sunset, always look behind you. The whole group were facing the sun as it rose above the ocean horizon and missed all the colour that was happening behind them over Castle Rock.

With the sun rising and the pastel colours fading from the sky my time on the beach was done. I walked back to the car, drove to the main beach and sat there for 2 hours hoping the surf conditions would improve…they didn’t. The drive home always sucks, with more traffic on the roads and the best part of the day completed.

Details

Origin: Wellington

Destination: Castlepoint Beach, Wairarapa

Driving time: 2.5 hours (170km)

Sunrise: 6:22am