Editorial: Puzzled by beach parking | Wairarapa Opinion | Local Voices from Wairarapa, New Zealand

I had some visitors at the weekend and grabbed the chance while the weather wasn't too rubbish to take them for a walk around Castlepoint.

There's a lot to like about Castlepoint: the scenery is dramatic and pretty, and even if it's too cold for a dip there's a good walk to be had above the beach to Castle Rock and back.

But there's something I don't understand about the beach there and I'm hoping someone can enlighten me.

Why is there so much traffic on the beach?

At times walking on the sand feels a bit like taking your life into your hands with the number of cars and motorbikes zooming up and down.

None seemed to make any concession for the fact that there were a number of walkers and children around by slowing down or letting walkers pass first.

The long line-up of cars parked along the rocks, near the pathway to the lighthouse, has also left an oily sheen across the sand.

I understand the need to drive on the sand to launch a boat or get to a remote fishing spot inaccessible by foot.

But most of the people I saw driving on the beach were just parking and walking to the lighthouse, parking up by the dunes and having a picnic, or zooming up and down the sand for no apparent reason.

Meanwhile, the actual carpark, which is barely a few steps from the beach, was half-empty.

Perhaps I'm missing the point. What do you think?

Many of our keen puzzlers have pointed out our mistake with Saturday's puzzle page. Unfortunately, the page was a repeat of an earlier page, which meant you missed solutions for Friday's puzzles as well. Sorry about that. We're looking into how this happened and we'll be more careful about checking our pages in future. In the meantime, look out for the solutions for Friday and Saturday's puzzles in this week's paper.