I have been spending an awful lot of time on the beach this past week with the dogs. I have been attempting to take them out every afternoon now that things have quietened down for me and there isn't something that I have to do every afternoon and they get to run and play and I also get a good walk in.
We climb in the car and drive out past Mile 4; as soon as we're on the dirt road past traffic if there is any, the dogs run alongside the car and I drive the last couple of kilometers onto the beach itself and then walk from there. Bear is howling to get out the car and run the moment we leave the house and it just gets louder and louder until we get to spot where he can run his heart out. Yes, many passers by give us rather strange looks at this Husky that is screaming his head off out the window ...
Even Kita is starting to enjoy the running, and is losing her totally ungainly galumphing crab-style sideways run and losing a bit of her grossly overweight body. She doesn't make it much over 20 km's per hour though,and usually gets left far behind as Bear and I cane off at about 40 km's per hour, leaving her far behind, but she plods on and catches up eventually. Normally by this time Bear and I have parked the car and are out on the beach already :)
Once out on the beach there is generally no one in sight for as far as you can see unless you look back to town,but during the week the beaches are empty - apart from Friday when we encountered some fisherman and so had to detour around them. I am slightly nervous being out there on my own as the dogs wouldn't be any kind of protection and there really is no one around.
We walk down the beach and I try to get in at least a 20 to 40 minute walk; good for me and a load of fun for them as they get to sniff an ever-changing array of debris thrown up onto the coastline by the freezing Atlantic. There are hundreds of seagulls that Bear has great delight in chasing - although as of yet he hasn't caught anything apart from that daft goose he chased the other day - and a huge amount of dead sea-life, shattered mussel shells, seaweed, shark eggs even, and all sorts of other things.
The seagulls seem to eat the mussel shells,which somehow their iron stomachs break down into this fine grit that they mess all over the beach in massive quantities. There are also loads of little rock-like things; well they look like rocks until you pick them up and then they are semi-soft; must be some kind of ocean sponge.The dogs have great delight in digging them into the sand and playing - the whole experience must be a total sensory overload for them.
On top of all the natural debris that the Atlantic throws onto the beaches, there is a startling amount of human rubbish - bottles, bags, fishing line, plastic, left over coals from fires, bones that people leave lying around and a huge amount of other stuff. All of this is detrimental to the sea-life in some way, and people don't seem to realize or care just what they are doing to the environment around them by refusing to pick up their litter.
Each bit of plastic could be the end of some animals life; whether they think it's a jellyfish or if its fishing line that gets stuck in their claws or around their necks. It is shocking and depressing to see just what humans are doing to this last wild coastline as they use it to abuse the fishing, party, and run their quad bikes and cars over the Tern's nesting grounds. The authorities have cordoned off areas where no one is meant to be allowed to drive, but the people here have scant regard for them or for conservation and instead complain that they are ruining holidays and income from tourism by refusing entry to sections of the dunes and beaches.
How small-minded - they don't seem to realize that when they are done destroying the coastline in the name of fun there won't be anything left to support our pathetic existence in this barren area and so won't be able to enjoy it anyway. What with rising sea levels and an angry Atlantic, it might not be long before Aranos is the new Swakop!
