The topography at this site is great with a rocky reef full of of cracks, crevices and canyons. Plenty of kelp as well as invert encrusted patches on walls. Plenty to explore!

Aquatic Life:

This site is mostly well lit with lots of kelp, lessonia is quite dominant. There are also some shaded steep walls and little guts and other darker areas for encrusting life to thrive.

You often get passing schools of fish through this site, particularly at the southern end of the reef, trevally, jack mackerel and kahawai are common. Marble fish seem to have made this site home as have butterfish, both being more abundant here than in most other sites along the south coast in my experience.

Common species include spotties, scarlet wrasse, banded wrassered, red moki, blue moki, tarakihi, oblique swimming, variable and blue-eyed triplefins, rock lobster, red cod and bigeyes in small caves, and blue cod generally hang out on the lower parts of the reef. Octopuses are regularly seen here. I even once saw a girdled wrasse - unusual this far north I think though they are sometimes seen up at Kapiti.

Warnings:

The channels can get quite surgy which can make those entry/exit points a little hairy. If the weather does pick up while you're there it can be a good choice to exit via the small gravel beach.

Directions:

From Wellington city centre head through Newtown along Adelaide Rd and continue along this road, through Berhampore and Island Bay. Just before you hit the coast is Island Bay Divers (corner of The Parade and Reef Street) where you can grab a fill. Hang a left on Reef St and head east along The Esplanade until you get to about 122 (almost 1km from where you first hit The Esplanade). A narrow entry with scrub on either side takes you down where there's room for a few cars to park. Park up on the left.

Elsdon Pipe is an old sewerage pipe (don't worry, it was closed off many years ago now!). A good entry is to walk out along the pipe and go around the left side of the big concrete block. You can easily pop in here and either exit through the short channel out to the east or through the longer channel heading south. My preference is to head out the eastern side and then work my way south out along the reef and pop around the corner to the west which is usually about time to head back.

Alternatively there is a small gravel beach just to the east where you park up where you can enter easily then work your way south along the reef.