Golden Bay
After leaving Morueka we headed north to Golden Bay and Takaka. A town of a few thousand people and not much else. It's the main town in Golden Bay and we stayed at the rather average Annie's Nirvana Lodge.
In the afternoon we headed up to the top end of Abel Tasman National Park, taking a short walk on the way to Wairui Falls which looked like something out of a film, I expected to find Kevin Costner swimming in the pool below actually but thankfully it was a no show.
We drove on to Totaranui. The fursthest north we'd got the other way when we took the water taxi. This beach is at the end of a 12km gravel road and home to an astonishing 800 site campsite. Deserted now but full to the brim over the January NZ holidays. It must be quite surreal during the season.
Anyway after our night in Takaka we headed up to Collingwood, named after Nelson's second in command at Trafalgar and once short-listed as the capital of NZ due to it's gold fields and good harbour etc. Those days are long gone and the population of 250 is mainly centred around art studios and the tours of Farewell Spit (which I'll explain later).
We were staying at The Innlet Backpackers about 10km further north. A very rustic place with the toilets outside and into a stinking pit below. Apart from that it was pretty agreeable.
That afternoon (Friday) we decided to have a go horse-trekking. We hoped to get on one of the treks to Whairariki Beach. An amazing, windswept beach on the west coast and surrouned by strange rocks.
We tried phoning but no reply so we drove up to the stables and sure enough in true NZ fashion they took us out even though we hadn't booked.
It was everything New Zealand is about. Nice, friendly people, amazing scenery, laid back and a closeness to nature.
Both our horses were inpecibly behaved although mine did have a well-known tendancy to go as slowly as he could get away with which he lived out for me and lead to almost continual kicking and smacking from myself. Despite being called Sultan he was perfectly timid and Copper, Jamie's ride was equally well behaved.
We took a couple of trots down the beach but the family jewels just couldn't take the battering so we left the German stable girls to gallop off up the beach at breakneck speed.
Awesome.
Next day was the eco-tour to Cape Farwell (most northerly point of the south island) and then on to Farewell Spit. The spit bends off the Northern tip off the South Island like a whip into the Cook Stait. It is over 28km long and consists almost entirely of sand produced by the erosion of the Southern Alps washed up the West Coast by the rivers and prevailing winds.
The Spit is home to various birds (although not too numerous on our trip) along with flotsum like the shark heads we saw, dead seals and stranded whales (of which we saw a few sizzling like huge sausages under the sun).
The lighthouse on the end of the spit was automated in the 1980s and is over 100 years old. It used to house 3 keepers and their families and it is a little oasis of trees and grass (grown by one of the keepers in the 1920s) in the sandy desert of the spit. Speaking of deserts, the rainfall at the lighthouse can be as low as 14 inches a year which is actually defined as desert conditions.
Anyway, this morning we drove back to Nelson and we're back at The Bug backpackers. A very homely spot we stayed in a week ago.
Tomorrow we're off to the Nelson Lake District for a night, then Picton for a night then we pull at the heartstrings as we have to bid farwell to the South Island and head across Cook Strait to Wellington.
We've pretty much done it all down here. What a place!
In the afternoon we headed up to the top end of Abel Tasman National Park, taking a short walk on the way to Wairui Falls which looked like something out of a film, I expected to find Kevin Costner swimming in the pool below actually but thankfully it was a no show.
We drove on to Totaranui. The fursthest north we'd got the other way when we took the water taxi. This beach is at the end of a 12km gravel road and home to an astonishing 800 site campsite. Deserted now but full to the brim over the January NZ holidays. It must be quite surreal during the season.
Anyway after our night in Takaka we headed up to Collingwood, named after Nelson's second in command at Trafalgar and once short-listed as the capital of NZ due to it's gold fields and good harbour etc. Those days are long gone and the population of 250 is mainly centred around art studios and the tours of Farewell Spit (which I'll explain later).
We were staying at The Innlet Backpackers about 10km further north. A very rustic place with the toilets outside and into a stinking pit below. Apart from that it was pretty agreeable.
That afternoon (Friday) we decided to have a go horse-trekking. We hoped to get on one of the treks to Whairariki Beach. An amazing, windswept beach on the west coast and surrouned by strange rocks.
We tried phoning but no reply so we drove up to the stables and sure enough in true NZ fashion they took us out even though we hadn't booked.
It was everything New Zealand is about. Nice, friendly people, amazing scenery, laid back and a closeness to nature.
Both our horses were inpecibly behaved although mine did have a well-known tendancy to go as slowly as he could get away with which he lived out for me and lead to almost continual kicking and smacking from myself. Despite being called Sultan he was perfectly timid and Copper, Jamie's ride was equally well behaved.
We took a couple of trots down the beach but the family jewels just couldn't take the battering so we left the German stable girls to gallop off up the beach at breakneck speed.
Awesome.
Next day was the eco-tour to Cape Farwell (most northerly point of the south island) and then on to Farewell Spit. The spit bends off the Northern tip off the South Island like a whip into the Cook Stait. It is over 28km long and consists almost entirely of sand produced by the erosion of the Southern Alps washed up the West Coast by the rivers and prevailing winds.
The Spit is home to various birds (although not too numerous on our trip) along with flotsum like the shark heads we saw, dead seals and stranded whales (of which we saw a few sizzling like huge sausages under the sun).
The lighthouse on the end of the spit was automated in the 1980s and is over 100 years old. It used to house 3 keepers and their families and it is a little oasis of trees and grass (grown by one of the keepers in the 1920s) in the sandy desert of the spit. Speaking of deserts, the rainfall at the lighthouse can be as low as 14 inches a year which is actually defined as desert conditions.
Anyway, this morning we drove back to Nelson and we're back at The Bug backpackers. A very homely spot we stayed in a week ago.
Tomorrow we're off to the Nelson Lake District for a night, then Picton for a night then we pull at the heartstrings as we have to bid farwell to the South Island and head across Cook Strait to Wellington.
We've pretty much done it all down here. What a place!
posted by PeterZ at 10:09 PM
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