On our North Island road trip we spent 2 days with good friends in Masterton. We had often spoken of visiting Castlepoint when in Masterton but weather and opportunity had never coincided so this time I was determined to make the trip. We had a gorgeous day for it and Rob suggested we take a short detour at Whakataki to go and see the Mataikona Rocks. These are a fascinating geological formation of layers of compressed sandstone, bent and then buckled up by tectonic plate collision. At low tide a large area of the exposed ridges are visible with rock pools to explore but our visit was at a higher tide which was actually perfect for the pictures I got as it allowed the rock ridges and water to combine into  good leading lines.

Definitely a worthwhile detour on the way to Castlepoint. I would have been happy to spend a few hours (or days) exploring this area.

Photos with tripod mounted Nikon D810 and Nikon 24-120mm f4 VR lens. Top 2 images with 10 stop ND filter.