Off the Beaten Track

Let’s Talk about Takaka Hill - I’d rather not!

Sunrise at Farewell Spit

SATURDAY 1 MARCH 2025 - TUESDAY 11 MARCH 2025

When we said that we were heading toward Farewell Spit some of our friends started mentioning a ‘special’ road we would need to go over to get to Collingwood. The advice I was given for coping with Takaka Hill was to just focus on my knitting and let Dave cope with the road. What surprised us most about Takaka Hill was how quickly it was upon us once we left Kaiteriteri. Total respect to the early settlers who forged this route to get to Golden Bay because this was a little bit more than a ‘hill’. Approximately 51 kms of twisty, turny road that went up and up and up and then went down and down and down. Thank goodness for exhaust brakes because without them I think our brakes would have been on fire! It had bends that completely turned back on themselves with names like Horseshoe Bend and Eureka Bend. The road itself was in fantastic condition and totally worth it to get to Collingwood so we could make the trip to Farewell Spit.

We booked a beach site at Collingwood Holiday Park and we were not disappointed. This was the view from the motorhome door.

The best thing about this campground though was how close it was to Farewell Spit Eco Tours. Farewell Spit Nature Reserve is a nature reserve that is on a 35 km sandspit right at the top of the South Island and the tour that we had booked to see the longest sandspit in the world is tide dependent, so we left at 6:00 am!! To only have a two minute walk to join the tour was a gift and at least we got to see a brilliant sunrise.

Our tour guide was Fynn, his Grandmother had been married to one of the lighthouse keepers so he had superb local knowledge and he had been working for DOC on the Chathams so he was super knowledgeable about the bird life on the spit as well. He was very skilled at ensuring we didn’t get stuck in any quicksand as we drove up the outside of the spit. We drove as far as the lighthouse, which used to be the tip of the spit but the spit is growing in length AND width and vehicles are not allowed to go any further than the lighthouse. At the lighthouse you got to appreciate how isolated it must have been for the families who were stationed here, with their supply ships only coming every few months. We saw huge vertebrae from a sperm whale that had died at sea and been washed ashore. Whales will often beach themselves on the other side of the spit. This tour also took us to Cape Farewell - the actual top of the South Island and once again we got to see seals. Suffering Takaka Hill was so worth it to be able to do this tour.

What made Collingwood even more special for us was that we had received an email from our Auckland friends, Dave and Brigid Ison, that they were going to be in Collingwood for the same days as us and it was super to have a drink with them on our first night. After our tour Dave and Brigid picked us up and took us to the Old School Cafe, Bar and Restaurant at Pakawau. This is a restaurant in the old school house, so for myself, Dave and Brigid (who is also a teacher) it was a bit surreal! We finally got to eat some Blue Cod and it was so so good to share it with friends from Auckland!

Before we left Collingwood we had to try some surf casting and although our attempts were a bit woeful we did see a one metre kingfish landed. It was caught by a young European tourist and the very best bit about this was that he had been helped and schooled by one of the local ‘Seadogs” who gave the young tourist a live kahawai bait, helped him rig it and talked him through winding it in successfully. Talk about making that tourists day - made you really proud to be a Kiwi!

Heading out of Collingwood our first stop was at Te Waikoropupu Springs. These springs are the largest freshwater springs in New Zealand, the largest cold water springs in the Southern Hemisphere and contain some of the clearest water ever measured.

We also stopped in Takaka which had a decided “Cook Street Market” feel about it before once again heading over the Takaka Hill.

To break up the trip to Murchison we stayed a night at a POP (Park over Property) in Tapawera. We stayed in a paddock with a view of Mt Arthur, near to the Buller River with fresh farm eggs for sale - perfect. While we were in Tapawera, I tried to book our stay in The Riverside Holiday Park in Murchison online. Did you know that there is more than one Riverside Holiday Park in New Zealand?? No, neither did I but I diligently booked us three nights at the Riverside Holiday Park in MANGAWHAI!! Luckily I noticed that the money had been sent to a bank in Wellsford so I could quickly get our money back from Mangawhai and book us into Murchison - phew!

The REAL Riverside Holiday Park in Murchison - beside the Buller River

The highlights for us in Murchison were two totally different entities. The first was H Hodgson & Co which is listed as a department store. What a treasure trove of a shop this is. Our purchases from here ranged from gold panning equipment to part of Bec’s birthday gift but this store had an awesome display of Kiwiana and service like you got at Smith and Caugheys!

Our second highlight involved gold. As we were camping beside the Buller River, in the heart of gold mining country we had to try our hand at panning for gold. We had watched all the gold mining programmes on Netflix and seen a few “How to” videos on YouTube so our confidence was high. We were stunned at how quickly we saw that magical glitter in our pans. At the end of day one we both had a teeny wee bottle of gold that probably meant we had a deposit on a loaf of bread. With such an inspiring start we headed back to the river and once again found success. That night, a young man who is a full time gold miner saw our pans and asked if we had any success. Showing him our ‘haul’ he confirmed that we were, in fact, fools as we had a spectacular little collection of Fools Gold - Damn!!