One fine Sunday morning at Aramoana a couple of weeks ago it was fascinating to see how many varieties of food were being gathered from the sea at low tide.
Not only were seagulls squabbling and dropping shellfish from the air hoping they would open, and oystercatchers running round squawking and poking their beaks into the sand for morsels, but people were also looking for a feed of kai moana.
People were fishing off the rocks along the Mole, although those I talked to had not caught anything.
On the beach, waist deep in the breakers, two or three people were gathering tuatua - one of them came up the beach later with a large crab as well as a bag of the shellfish.
Beside the road a diver clambered down the rocks to look for paua. There aren't many around now because of overfishing, he said, but he was hoping to find a few.
A car full of Asian people parked nearby. Its occupants took a little sickle and came back later with a big bag of seaweed and smiles on their faces. Bladder kelp grows along the sheltered side of the Mole and kombu on the rocks at the end of the spit.
Near the rickety wharf a couple of large fur seals, no doubt replete with fish, snoozed on the beach in the sun.
Behind the spit another family walked across the mudflats pulling a trolley with a large bucket on it, presumably to gather cockles, which can be found there.
And it wasn't only food people were gathering. One man shovelled up the small cone-shaped shells that fill the gaps among the rocks to put in his garden instead of woodchips, and another filled a sack with old seaweed for his compost.
And in the channel numerous large and small boats motored out to sea, many of them presumably in search of fish.
There are probably not many places in the world you can still do this sort of thing. Although resources may be depleted, there's still some food to be found for those wishing for a feed of kai moana. And even if you don't find anything, a day at the beach is great anyway.
