Golden Bay

Abandoning the sounds we headed east through Nelson and over the Takaka Hill (really a mountain) to Golden Bay.  When compared with Marlborough's refined and sedate sophistication, Golden Bay felt more like a fossilized remnant of the 60's.  Dreadlocks and alternative lifestyles abound, selling organic produce, homemade crafts and practicing holistic and natural medicines.  After enduring a full day and night of torrential downpour the sun emerged again, allowing us to get back to the regularly scheduled programming.  The first stop in the new region was Rawhiti Cave, which was a deceptively mellow hike until about halfway when it shot uphill along a muddy slippery root covered mess of a trail.  It was all worth it in the end though, as the mouth of this "cave" was decorated with some fantastical and menacing looking stalactites .  I say "cave because really it's more like a large pit with an overhang, you could descend a boardwalk into the pit's lower viewing platform for a closer but less interesting look at the stalactites.  Besides being less interesting, it was also unnerving to be standing underneath the heavy and sharp stones waiting to impale you at a moment's notice.  But hey, sometime's that's the fun in NZ! 

At the mouth of Rawhiti Cave

From inside

Mossy stalactites looking more like a hanging mushroom garden!

In a rare moment when all the day's activities are within fifteen minutes drive of each other we were at next spot in no time flat.  The Grove, as it is called, is a unique short walk along some very exotic looking forest overgrown with thick vines that cling and climb to trees and massive limestone boulders that litter the karst landscape around Takaka.  Looking more like Thailand than New Zealand, it was a great change up from the typical NZ lowland forest.  Many of the water carved limestone rocks had peculiar shapes and I for one, saw many faces poking out of the rocks.  Just beyond The Grove lie the northern end of the Abel Tasman coast, which we will be walking in its entirety come April.  For now though, a short walk to the region's only waterfall, Wainui Falls was in order.  The most interesting things about this fall was tea-colored tannin stained waters and the bridge we had to cross to get there.  We had been on innumerable swing bridges around NZ, but this one was the first to have a maximum load of 1 person.  The bridge itself was just composed mostly of wire mesh and it was delightfully (or frighteningly depending on your perspective) swingy.  Between The Grove and the walk to Wainui Falls, I was feeling like Indiana Jones and Kayleigh Laura Croft of Tomb Raider.  

You see the face? 

Awesome swing bridge 

Wainui Falls

At the northern most tip of the South Island lies a stretch of coast unlike most of which lines the rest of the island.  Most notable for it's arches and high winds, Wharariki may just be the only beach on the west coast that isn't plagued with sandflies.  Kayleigh and I strolled along the long beach, exploring the many cool rock formations, caves, tide pools and arches along the way and despite a few mishaps with local wildlife (mugging cows, giant grasshoppers and spiders nests), Kayleigh still holds this portion of the day in high regard.  After the beach I spent some hours climbing to various lookout points along the headlands east of the beach in the hot midday sun while Kayleigh found reprieve in the car.

Wharariki Archway 

Cape Farewell headlands - the northernmost point in the South Island

The last bit of our time in Golden Bay was spent at the Farewell Spit, which is a huge sand bar stretching northeast from the mountains of the West coast.  It's known as the beak of the Kiwi and if you look at a map of the region you'll know why.  Amazingly, it was formed by millions of years of high winds blowing sand up the West coast beaches and slowly building a mountain under the sea.  It millennia long passed, it even connected the South and North Isles! Now for the not so amazing part - the public isn't allowed on most of the spit. Unless you pay for an eco-tour you're only chance to see the spit is confined to only a small area near the it's base.  We tried to do this loop, but it was poorly marked and honestly just boring.  We walked for about an hour and a half along mud flats with the only morbidly curious sight being a small washed up dead whale that was well into the stages of decomposition.  The walk got a little better when we decided to cross the white sand dunes to the northern side of the spit, but it wasn't enough to justify the length of the walk.  A rare disappointment in a country with so much commanding beauty.

Smelly as!