Takaka and Golden Bay

We took the bus from Picton to Nelson, and stayed overnight at YHA-Nelson before renting another car and heading north. We decided this time to spend two days in and around Takaka, a small town with a lot of alternative residents (think California in the 1960s), then spend two days further north in the Golden Bay area.

On the way up the coast we stopped at the Hop Federation brewery in the small village of Riwaka.  Paul chatted with the friendly brewer, and picked up some new beers to try on the trip.

Before you get to Takaka, you have to cross a large hill/small mountain.  The road gets curvy and slow as you climb, but the views are great near the top.  On the way down, we got behind a milk truck and a herd of cows - never know what you'll come across on a New Zealand road.

View from Takaka Hill

Cows in the road coming down Takaka Hill

In Takaka, we stayed at the funky Annie's Nirvana Lodge backpackers hostel.  We'd passed a young man with a backpack right before arriving at the hostel, and just as we were getting out of the car we heard a hearty, "Hello, friends!".  It was Conor, our new friend from the Marlborough Sounds hostel, who had just finished hiking the Abel Tasman track and was also staying a night or two at Annie's.

The patio area behind Annie's Nirvana Lodge

The owners were traveling, so the hostel is being temporarily run by a nice couple about our age from Christchurch.  We cooked supper, and then went with Conor to a benefit film showing of "Beyond the Edge", a film about New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary, who with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were the first party to reach the summit of Mt. Everest.  The benefit was for a village in Nepal - one of the Takaka residents had lived in the Nepal village for a time, made a strong friendship with someone in the village, and wanted to help them after the village was hit hard during the Nepal earthquakes last April.  We think New Zealanders are especially conscious of such things after the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes.  The benefit was well-attended, and made sweeter by the many contributions of dessert items which were also sold to raise money to send to Nepal.

Theatre lobby during intermission at the Nepal benefit

The next day it rained hard, all day, and all over New Zealand.  About twenty international travelers  (everyone from university students to a possum trapper) from at least eight countries (including China, Spain, France, USA, Malaysia, New Zealand, Germany and Belgium) spent most of the day in Annie's, sharing stories and enjoying each others' company.  We did venture out once, getting lunch at the Wholemeal Cafe in Takaka, which we recommend heartily if you're ever passing through.

There was a window of clear skies the next morning, so we headed out early to the Grove Scenic Reserve near the town of Clifton.  There's mostly farmland around here, but right in the middle is this chunk of limestone that has maze-like paths through it.  There's a short loop hike through the area, and you feel like you've fallen far into another land.

One minute you're in farmland...

... but the next minute, you're not.

Any hobbits around?

We drove along the coast to the north end of the Abel Tasman National Park.  Unfortunately, the track was closed to the waterfall hike we wanted to do, but we walked around the small villages on the edge of the park knowing that we were deep in penguin land.

We then drove up to the Golden Bay area, staying two nights at the wonderful Innlet BBH backpackers lodge.  We enjoyed a one night stay here in 2011, and this time came back for two nights. The Innlet is a good gateway to the top end of the South Island, including the Kaituna Track, Farewell Spit and Wharariki Beach.  We like the eco-friendly approach they have to their place, including using composting toilets.

View from our room at the Innlet

Jonathan, one of the owners of the Innlet, in his workshop

The Kaituna Track, in Kahurangi National Park, starts near the Naked Possum Cafe (one of our favorite cafe names, but unfortunately closed by the time we got off the trail) and heads off into the bush, crossing all the way up to the northwestern shore of the South Island if you hike for 8 hours or so.  After just half an hour of walking, you come across the site of an 1850s gold mine.  We walked a little past that, but as it was getting dark we hiked back out.

Waterfall along the Kaituna Track

Shaft entrance for the abandoned Kaituna Gold Mine

The next day we hiked out on Farewell Spit.  Farewell Spit is a 35 km long sand spit at the very northern tip of the South Island.  Most of it can only be entered on an approved tour by permit, but you can walk out on the first 4 km.  We started on the Golden Bay side, and hiked along the beach for two hours.  It's fairly narrow, a combination of rock and sand, with many birds along the shore, including oystercatchers, black swans, red-billed gulls, chaffinchs, and even some Canada geese.  Along the way we saw many large skeletons and carcasses - we found out later that these were pilot whales, remaining from February 2015 when over one hundred of them beached and died on the shore. 

Farewell Spit, on the Golden Bay side

We weren't sure what these blobs on the beach were, but Cindy convinced Paul to put his foot on it

We later found out they were pilot whale carcasses from a mass stranding of about 120 whales

Cindy finds a tuna lure on the beach - we cut it out to avoid any wildlife getting caught on it

After walking 4K on the beach we saw the sign marking the end of the open hiking area, so turned inland and started hiking across the spit.  At the top of the first ridge, we could see a number of sand dunes and ridges, with wet low areas (swales) between, some with interesting patterns due to grass whipping around the sand in the wind.  Farewell Spit had seen a lot of rain in the week before our arrival, and we had to go off-trail and find our way around the wet lowland areas.

Sand markings from the wind blowing on the grass

Off the path to find our way around the water areas

There were a few markers on the high ground to help hikers stay on track crossing the spit

After about 45 minutes of walking up, down and around, we finally got to the Tasman Sea side of the spit, and found a very different world - large expanses of sand containing a few grassy high spots.  It looked like a moonscape.  We started down toward the beach, and suddenly we were both sinking - our first experience with quicksand!  The rain had saturated the sand in places, making it semi-liquid and unable to support human weight.  Cindy temporarily lost her shoe, but we were able to dig it out.  We'd been told people usually walk along the ocean beach, but there was no way we could do that.  We walked parallel to the beach on higher ground, but couldn't find the track back into the bush.  After seeing that someone else had found the quicksand (and left a warning in the sand), we walked back across the spit to the bay side's harder (and familiar) ground, and hiked back to the car park.  Definitely one of the more exciting four hour hikes we've had in New Zealand!

After crossing most of the spit, first view of the Tasman Sea

Getting closer to the beach on the Tasman sea side.  We didn't know it then, but the low blacker sand patches, usually near the pools of water, are the quicksand.

The sand quickly gets soft (Cindy's shoe was at the bottom of the top hole - at least a foot down)

After hiking some more on higher ground back toward civilization, we found this warning - so we turned back across the spit and retraced our steps on the safer Golden Bay side

After a stop at the Farewell Spit Cafe, we drove up to Wharariki Beach for a shorter 1 hour out-and-back hike that we'd done before.  This path starts in farm fields with the sheep and lambs, parallels a stream where baby seals play, and then ends on a beach with some huge offshore rocks.  However, the beach was quite windy by the time we got there, and between the colder air and the blowing sand, we didn't stay too long.  We were happy to walk back up and say goodbye to the very friendly sheep, including a few lambs we wanted to take home.

Entering Wharariki Beach

Dwarfed by nature

Pattern in the blowing sand

Large rocks just off Wharariki Beach

Cuteness in wool

Our last night at the Innlet was special - we went outside around 9:00 PM to see hundreds of glowworms on the bank along the owners' driveway, then looked up to see the Southern Cross constellation with the whole sky clear, the Milky Way bright, and several shooting stars completing the show.