Roam Relax Repeat

March 06, 2020

Monday March 2

The next four days are a bit up in the air based on a sketchy looking weather forecast. We want to spend some time in Abel Tasman National Park which offers both hiking and kayaking opportunities. The campsite in Abel Tasman is basic, without easy access to shopping so we needed to plan our food for a few days too. We went back and forth with different ideas on where to go first and for how long and we finally decided to stay just outside the park in Pohara for a couple of nights to wait out the rain. So into the van and we were off to Pohara, about 3 hours north of Nelson. Nice drive over some mountainous terrain and down into a long valley that followed a river out to the ocean. The clouds were hanging low over the mountains and it was very humid – felt like rain was coming. Made it to the campsite and then had time to explore the area a bit – found a hike to a waterfall that we didn’t have time to do but promised ourselves we’d make time for it later. It was close to happy hour so we headed back to camp for the evening’s festivities.

Tuesday March 3

Woke up a few times during the night to the sound of rain on our van roof! Fortunately, we haven’t heard that sound very often on this trip. By morning though, it had stopped. We had a few options but we decided on a trip around Golden Bay to Farewell Spit, a 35 km long sand spit that is the most northerly part of the South island. It’s home to a large array of bird species and other marine life, so we crossed our fingers in hopes that it wouldn’t rain too much and we headed off. En route we stopped in Collingwood for coffee and tea. A couple of the signs coming into town had been edited to read Collingweed – must be a bit of a hippie town!

After coffee it was off to the spit. There were a number of hiking choices and we decided to do the beach walk which went up the inner shore, traversed the dunes and then back along the ocean side. When we started the walk, the tide was way out (big tides here) and consequently the birds were way out too. We did try walking out over the tidal flats towards the birds but they just moved away as we approached. There were mostly black swans but also a number of other species including Canada Geese! Probably cruising around looking for a new golf course to hang out on!

The more we walked, the nicer the weather became. Little holes in the clouds opened up and blue sky was revealed, yeah! Farewell Spit is a beautiful, rugged place. I imagine it to be like Sable Island without the ponies. Lots of huge dunes and grasses, we really enjoyed the traverse from the inner shore to the ocean shore. The ocean walk was equally stunning and very few visitors so it felt like we had the place to ourselves. After the hike we decided to check out some of the other vistas in the area. There is some higher ground at the west end of the spit and its all part of the scenic preserve so we hopped in the van a drove a few minutes to a scenic overlook at Cape Farewell – spectacular. One more stop to go, we headed a few kilometers further down the gravel road to Whararkiki Beach – another stunning beach with acres of rolling dunes and beach with some rocky islands just off shore which are home to a colony of seals. We discovered three of the seals hanging out in a cave at the end of the beach just lounging around in the shade. After our beach visit it was time to head to camp for supper and an evening of catching up with the blog! As we ate supper in the van, the rain started again, but we were happy and dry in our van and thankful that we had such a great, dry day out on the dunes at the Farewell Spit.