Chrystalls Beach

Formerly Akatore beach, now Chrystalls, Christalls, or Chrystals Beach, this is a wild, windswept Otago Beach, at the end of a web of dusty roads.
However, the Otago locals love it and some camp here in the summer. There are even a few baches or cribs.

The defining feature of interest here would be that this was the final resting place of French Barque *Marguerite Mirabaud,*which well and truly wrecked here in 1907. It will likely never be resolved whether the French version of the story, for the insurers, that the 'fog was so dense there way no method of navigation', or the local version, 'the day was calm and clear and the sea was like a millpond, the crew must have helped themselves to the cargo of wine and spirits,' is more or less accurate. All the crew were saved and some of the wreckage from the ship is in the Milton Museum. The mast used to stand at the beach but has been removed for safekeeping and a plaque stands in a reserve instead.

Other than an historic wreck, there is rock. In any other part of the country it might just be a rock, but here where the sand stretches for miles in either direction, 'Cooks Head Rock' is to be climbed and photographed.

Swimming is for the brave and the smart who can work out where the rips are. Take Care. And likewise take care around the Sea Lions who are not dangerous when given a wide berth.