NZ Road Trip — Finishing off Golden Bay
By: Mark Ballantyne
Tags: Roadtrip, Travel, Summer, New Zealand, Traveling

Cape Farewell, New Zealand

Today was a day that took us back to being packed with action. We awoke earlier than we have the last few days to our farmside scenery, got a quick breakfast amongst the cows in our bellies and off we went.

We have been trying the last few days to make it out to the north west coast of the south island but have been unable to do so every day. We simply keep finding stuff to do. That is by no means a bad problem to have. Today, however, was the day that we would get there. The first stop, bright and early, on today's agenda was Farewell Spit. Farewell Spit is the longest natural sandbar in the world which sounds pretty impressive. Supposedly once upon a time it attached the bottom of the South Island with the Taranaki region. Its growing every year so who’s to say that it can’t do it again. Pulling into the carpark, we wandered down to the sheltered bay side of the spit. To be honest it doesn’t really look like what you would imagine. The tide was out so we were looking over mud flats. It’s still fairly impressive in an apocalyptic sort of way but definitely not what either of us were expecting. One of the nearby information signs had walking tracks of the area and so we picked one that mentioned Seals and took off. The track we took was cutting across farmland to go from the eastern, sheltered bay side of the Spit to the exposed western side of the Spit. It took about 20 minutes to walk through 4 different paddocks (to Celina’s excitement some had Sheep in them) until we finally opened out onto the beach. This side of the beach is more like what we were expecting. The sand was compact and pancake flat but it ran for miles, racing off toward to horizon. We headed toward the south end of the Spit toward fossil point. The promise of Seals came true and we got to see a few of them lazing in the morning sun. The path to Fossil Point passed through Oystercatcher nesting territory or so the two that swooped and screeched at us told us. Funny to look back on, freaky at the time.

The north western part of the south island has a lot to do in a very compact area. After trudging back to the van we made a short turn towards cape farewell. Cape Farewell is the northernmost point of the South Island as was named so by one Captain James Cook. He named it Cape Farewell as this was the last part of New Zealand he could see before he sailed off and said farewell. The shear drop of the cliffs and the crashing of the waves are very impressive to lay eyes upon. The arch which seawater passes through is accompanied by a small bay at which Seals like to play. It's got a lot going on. One side of Golden Bay possesses the beauty and the other side possesses the power. Cape Farewell is the epitome of that power.

The next thing on today's list was Wharariki Beach. This was nothing mentioned in of the guidebooks that we have but I had seen photos of the beach at sunset on various places we have been. It looked like our kinda spot. Its only a matter of minutes from Cape Farewell and has plenty of car parking and a small café. The mornings excursions had worn us down so we decided we deserved a pie. It had been a few days since we had added to the pie standings so this was as good of a time as any. I’m going to tell you now if you are thinking of doing the same thing we did. Don’t. I don’t want to say it was the worst pie I’ve had but it was close enough that it doesn’t matter.

Pie Standings

1. Port Road Bakery, Whangamata

2. Waiuku Bakery, Waiuku

3. Classic Taupo Cafe, Taupo

We put that behind us determined not to let it ruin our Wharariki experience. Wharariki beach has a simple 20 minute beach access walk and when you reach the bottom prepare to be blown away. It opens out to beautiful white dunes that like Fossil Point just range for miles. There was sand everywhere. I couldn’t believe how far back the sand started as well. You had to walk a long time before you reached the waters edge. There were not a lot of people around but the ones that were spent their time lying on the sand reading, playing beach cricket or exploring little caves in the cliffside. Not many people were swimming and we put that down to a sign at the end of the track warning against currents and rips. We were very hot and the water looked safe enough so we decided to take a dip and cool off. I think, if I’m not mistaken, that this was my first time swimming in the Tasman. Got to say, it’s a lot like swimming in the Pacific.

Our day was rounded out by our time at Wharariki. I think we’ve done all that we wanted to in the Tasman region so the next part of our trip will bring us back to the east coast down to Christchurch. Rumour has it, there's a Big Ox roaming the streets. We are back at Pohara NZMCA camp tonight and funnily enough met a guy from Pukehina Beach. Small world.

Highlight of the day | Cape Farewell

Song of the day | Bad Husband — Eminem

Km today | 107km

Km total | 1,168km