The coast around Knight’s Point is as rugged as any in Westland, and it is therefore of no surprise that the last section of the highway connecting Otago to Westland was completed here only in the last forty years. Before the road was completed the steep hills and precipitous coastal cliffs were regarded as almost impenetrable, and anyone wanting to travel from Otago to the West Coast had to travel hundreds of kilometres via Arthur’s Pass well to the north. In testimony to the rugged environment the road is constantly subject to erosion; in fact it was closed by a landslide just hours after its official opening in November 1965, as though to remind the then-proud roading engineers that Nature still has the last say.
Along this road the coastal views in the vicinity of Knight’s Point are spectacular. Between Lake Moeraki to the north and Ship Creek to the south there are many lofty vantage points offering expansive views of rock-strewn headlands, high cliffs and deserted beaches. However, while there are many good views to be enjoyed from the road, some of the most spectacular views are from nearby clifftops, accessible only by foot through untracked bush and dense scrub below the road.
This lookout just south of Knight’s Point is one such place: untracked, unvisited and anonymous. It was mid afternoon when, scratched and bleeding from crawling through several hundred metres of tangled scrub, I emerged at the cliff edge and got my first glimpse of the dramatic coastal vista that stretched away to the south. At the time the sun was high in the sky and the light harsh, so, despite the difficulty involved in getting here, I decided to return later when the sun would be lower and the light softer.
It was still calm and settled when I came back at the end of the day for another look, eventually taking this sunset photograph of rocky outcrops fading into the sea mist in the distance. Curiously, I also found the rotting remains of a white-painted fence in the bush next to the cliff edge, a relic which suggested that this had been a better-known landmark in times gone by, perhaps when the nearby road was first being built. Thanks to the thick scrub, though, it seems likely that this place will now remain unseen from the road, known only to a few.
