Emergency responders are expecting oil to wash ashore at Western Bay of Plenty beaches, south of Mount Maunganui from Wednesday.
The heavy fuel oil emanates from the leaking container ship, Rena, which grounded on the Astrolabe Reef at 2.20am on Wednesday 5th oct.
Maritime New Zealand national on scene commander Rob Service says an approaching storm is expected to upset the emergency response and cause more oil to spill into the water.
“As a result of that we can expect oil on the beaches.”
A severe weather watch has been issued for the area where a container ship has been leaking oil off the coast of Tauranga.
The MV Rena has been stuck on the Astrolabe Reef since Wednesday.
It has already spewed 20 tonnes of fuel oil into the sea, sparking a massive operation to try to offload the 2000 tonnes it's still carrying.
The Navy is on its way to help the clean-up effort, with the HMNZS Endeavour scheduled to arrive in Tauranga around six this evening.
Public health warning after spill
Earlier today a public health warning was issued for Bay of Plenty residents not to eat seafood from waters around the Rena.
Medical Officer of Health Jim Miller said no shellfish or fin fish should be eaten from waters with visible oil contamination.
He's highlighted Motiti Island as an area that should be avoided for the collection of shellfish and warned against consuming any seafood with an off, or petrol-like, smell.
Although there is no evidence of the oil spill reaching the coastline, conditions are continually changing, he said, and the health advisory will remain in place until further notice.
This morning I went to my usual exercise class. We are a group of ladies with a teacher leading, who do a variety of stretches and exercises in a(vain) hope of keeping fit and even losing weight!
The exercises are to music supplied by the teacher, some of her music is more modern but occasionally she adds some very old time songs. Today she played this song, an oldtime tune released during the first world war I think.
As I listened I was absolutely carried back to when I was a young child. My father had been a soldier in the second world war, serving in the middle east and mediterranean, and had a huge repertoire of songs from that era. Some had been altered to include their own army version.
He would rise in the mornings at around 5am, make himself a cup of tea and toast, and then head off down to the milking shed to milk the herd of cows. My bedroom was right next to the kitchen and I would wake to his singing as he waited for the water to boil and then get ready to begin his days work. He had a beautiful singing voice and, as I mentioned, sometimes a slightly different version of the song.
I stood there in the hall with all the ladies around me, trying to hold back the tears. Nobody noticed, they were all too busy trying to keep up with our teacher.
My dad died nearly 40 years ago at a relatively young age. I would walk over hot coals to be able to hear his voice singing again.
We don't have snakes in New Zealand, or a variety of poisonous spiders. So consequently I tend to be very wary when stepping off the beaten track in Australia. No, I am more than wary - make that paranoid!
So I was a careful to steer clear of these little holes we spotted in the sand on the track. I was tempted to poke around with a stick to see if anything came out, but decided to leave well alone.
These are some of the wildflowers we saw north of Perth. We were not in the wildflower season so there was not the variety one would expect to see in the spring.The top photo is (I think) a type of bottlebrush, the middle one is a small shrub growing by the sea south of Kalbarri, and the last picture is a beautiful banksia tree.
