Golden Bay's highlight attraction is Farewell Spit, a 26 km long sand spit of "Golden" sand separating the Tasman Sea (the water between NZ and Australia) and the Cook Strait (the water between the North and South Islands). This sand dune is a wildlife and bird reserve, and the only way to see it is to book a tour. The weather forecast for the weekend was absolute crap, but with my short amount of time left in this neck-of-the-woods, I went onward and northward!
The 3.5 hour drive from Blenheim passes through Nelson and the Tasman Bay. The next town is Motueka (meaning "Island of Wekas"--remember that bird gnawing on my bicycle reflector? Yes, that was a weka). This town is known for its growing of green tea, hops, and fruit.
At first I thought these were grape vines...
But upon closer look, they're apples!
Leaving Motueka you climb up a windy hill called Takaka Hill. Here's looking back at the town of Motueka from that hill.
The first tourist stop of the weekend was Riwaka Resurgence. All the water that falls on Takaka Hill goes through many cracks and cave systems and pours out in the bottom at the Resurgence. The water is crystal clear and suitable to drink (I tried it, it was good!)
The Crystal Pools
The Resurgence (kind of a dark photo, but neat to imagine the underwater cave)...
Speaking of caves, next up was Harwood's Hole, the biggest cave in the Southern Hemisphere. Steve wanted to take me there as we passed through this area on the way to our Heaphy Track Bike Trip, but it was too far out of the way. There's a 11km gravel windy road to get to the forest entry. I was greeted to a surprise as I turned one of the windy corners....
SNOW ON THE GROUND! A first for Smoky, my car. She did great. Fortunately she has an excellent driver :)
This area is known as Canaan Downs. Apparently it was used as the location for Chetwood Forest in the Lord of the Rings Movies.
A creepy 30-minute walk through the forest by myself to come to this huuuuge cave. I was scared. There were warning signs all over the place to be careful. (They hardly EVER tell you to be careful anywhere in NZ, so I knew this was legit.) Here's just the side wall of the cave.
There were some big boulders close and stable enough for me to play around, so I did that :)
The cave is 400 meters deep (helloooooo unwrap a track and field track and that's 400 meters) with a 180m vertical drop.
I leaned my arms out over a boulder and point-and-shooted my camera down. This is what I got.
I didn't know how close you could get, and since I was alone, I didn't get any close, ergo no great cave pictures. Sorry. Next time I'll hire a professional spelunker tourguide.
But I took a side trail to a nice Lookout!
There were neato rocks up here with ridged, pointy, actually sharpish tops. If I had the opportunity to take Earth and Space Science in High School, I'd be able to tell you how/why they form like this. But if I had to guess, I'd blame it on wind and water.
Lake and ice and neat reflection on my (creepy solitary) walk out of the forest.
Thankfully this sheep still had all its wool on to keep warm!
Speaking of snow, I couldn't resist the urge to stop and make my first South Island Snowman. All pieces found in nature, except for his mouth--- that was in my snack bag :)
Moving on, the first thing in the town of Takaka to see was Te Waikoropupu Springs (Pupu Springs for short). They are the largest freshwater springs in NZ and reputedly the clearest in the world.
Through the same sort of "cracks in the hill" process mentioned about the Riwaka Resurgence, this is the same way that Pupu Springs gets water. This baby puts out about 14,000 liters of water a SECOND!
The Maori find these springs healing and sacred. You aren't allowed to touch/swim/drink the water.
I saw a white-faced heron there.
Next up was the booming metropolis of Takaka! This is the town where Steve and I met our car transport guy for the Heaphy trip. We didn't see the awesomeness of this town with that short stop. I found out numerous reasons why Takaka is awesome:
#1 --- Brilliant Rainbows! (yes, the crappy weather started just as I hit town).
#2- A Clothing and Sports Shop named after me! WIN.
and last but definitely not least #3--- a BRIDGE named in my honor! How many people can say that? Ben Franklin? George Washington? And me. :)
Hell. Yeah.
Well unfortunately I booked my Accomodation not in awesome Takaka but in the next town over, Collingwood. This was where the Farewell Spit tour was supposed to leave from the next morning. But, sadly, when I hopped back into the car after photographing the awesome bridge above, I had a voicemail from the touring company said that all the weekend tours were cancelled due to heavy rains and flooding, and they probably wouldn't be operating for the next FIVE DAYS if the weather predicted was coming.
It came. And it rained and poured ALL FRIDAY night. I spent the evening at the local pub and played pool with the locals. Some dude named Len and I went 5-0 playing all the others in the pub. Nice way to pass a rainy night.
The weather Saturday morning was on/off TERRIBLE then a quick break of sun would come.
Which brings RAINBOWS!!!
Since my tour was cancelled, I planned some alternate activities that weren't as weather dependent. Between these hills was a walking track to Rawhiti Caves.
Good rainy day activity, right?
Apparently this cave has the largest entrance of any in NZ.
These were a little safer and had proper walkways. I was all alone again, but it wasn't a creepy as the day before.
Golden Bay is full of little beach towns and windy roads. I absolutely loved this tunnel. What a work of nature!
The day kept going from absolutely horrible to peeks of sun. Next up I took a walk to Wainui Falls. The falls were GUSHING with all the rain we had overnight!
After starting the trek back to the car, I heard thunder. NOT a good time to be crossing a swingbridge with lightning on its way! I've never walked SO fast across one of these in my LIFE!
A long windy 16km gravel road took me to here, Totaranui Beach. I only encountered one torrential hail storm on the way there.
Definitely not warm nor safe enough to do anything here other than stop and take a photo. But if all goes as planned, I'll be back on this "golden" beach in a few weeks as part of the Abel Tasman Track!
By this point I was tired of wind, walking, rain, hail and driving and decided to call it a day.
Sunday's weather started out the same (another hailstorm as I checked out of my hotel). But I was set on seeing this Farewell Spit thing, hell or high water! I drove the 23km north to Puponga where I was left with two choices--- turn LEFT to go to Wharariki Beach, or turn RIGHT to go to Farewell Spit.
I turned left first.
Wharariki Beach was absolutely deserted and beautiful.
The sand dunes were gorgeous! But the wind was atrocious and sand was blowing everywhere.At least it made pretty patterns!
Apparently a seal colony lives around the edge of the rock on the right. The tide was a bit too high for me to go check it out. Still, it was beautiful.
I spotted this thing on the beach. At first I thought it was a psychadelic colored kids balloon. The info site guy said it was a jellyfish. Not until I got home and did some google research did I learn it was a Man-o-War!!! EEK.
Another big rock had a small cave inside. The colors and the patterns speak for themselves. So cool.
More sand dunes. They were taller than me. I tried to slide down one. Wasn't so graceful. Got sand everywhere. Even in ears :)
After the beach I checked out Cape Farewell---- this is it, the northernmost part of the South Island. Check!
I then went back the way I came, then headed in the other direction to Farewell Spit. I had a snack at the Cafe and chatted with the owner (yep, I was the only customer), and he gave me a walking itinerary to see as much of the area I could without the official 4x4 tour.
Here's the beginning of the Spit. The weather held out for a bit. No hail, no wind. Hooray!
This must've been some of the flooding my cancelled tour guide was talking about. I had to climb through some soggy dune grass to get around it.
The beach at Fossil Point.
The lagoon created by the flooding. At least the birds were enjoying it!
So that was that. I'm certain a guided 4x4 tour out further onto the Spit would've been amazing, but sometimes weather plays against you. I still had an amazing weekend and saw quite a few breathtaking scenes.
A rainbow on the way home was a great way to wrap up the often wet, sometimes sunny, weekend at the Top of the South Island.
Until next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment