Farewell Spit (top of South Island)

Monday 22nd November – After spending a pleasant hour first thing in range of the wireless internet connection at ‘Old McDonald’s’ we pottered off to re-find the highway and head further north, the target being to visit the most northerly part of South Island at Cape Farewell and the Farewell Spit. If you look at a map of South Island you will see at the top a piece of land that looks something like a birds head, with a long bill suitable for foraging in the sand; that ‘bill’ is farewell spit.

We headed through Upper Takaka and started the long and twisty climb of Takaka Hill, allegedly the ‘most bendy’ hill in New Zealand. This comprised hairpin bend after hairpin bend (apparently over 60), it actually being physically tiring on the shoulders! We paused partway up at Hawkes Lookout which gave incredible views of Tasman Bay and gave some idea of the height gained. We also met up with a couple from Essex who we had met a couple of time previously. We have found that this tends to happen where paths are shared for a while and you keep meeting the same people for a few days until paths again go different ways.

We then had a slightly less twisty descent into Takaka where we had coffee and a wander around and then continued to the Waikoropupu Springs, which are apparently the largest freshwater springs in New Zealand and produce the world’s clearest water.

The walk to the springs was through woodland which demonstrated the various stages of woodland recovery following destruction by fire and included some good examples of tree and ground ferns as well as the various stages of tree development.

We then continued through Ferntown, Pakawau and Port Puponga to Farewell Spit. Here we parked up and walked most of the way along the inner side of the spit (no cars allowed!), walking for about 1hr 20mins.

The walk was along a sandy beach which was covered at the shoreline with broken shells making much of the walk quite crunchy!

At the far-point of our walk we climbed the sand dunes until we could see the rich blue of the Tasman Sea. We then headed back for cold drinks at the cafe (no ice creams today, though it was warm enough!) before heading to Collingwood (not much there) and back to Takaka where we topped up on supplies.

We then took a ‘shortcut’ that Heather had identified which started off as a straight, well surfaced road before becoming a single lane rough and unsealed track that clung to the hillside as it wound its way along the side of the hills. Fun stuff, but a bit tricky in places!

We then climbed back over Takaka Hill along with the challenging descent and then to Motueka where we found a campsite. Here we were advised that as ‘top 10’ members (we joined as it gave us discounts on their campsites) we were entitled to a free spa bath, so that got added to our schedule ahead of dinner. We also booked on to an Abel Tasman ‘Seals, Bridges and Walk’ trip for the morning, but opted for the 1030 start (30 minutes drive away) rather than the 0900 one!