Moving House in Golden Bay But First a Drive to The West Coast

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C&M were heading back to Richmond today and we are moving to a slightly smaller Air BnB closer to Takaka for a further three nights.

With breakfast finished C&M said their goodbyes after packing their car in the light rain falling.

We are hopeful that the rain isn’t an omen of what is predicted in the Bay of Plenty and Gisborne areas as the weather system there appears somehow to be connected to the overcast skies here in Golden Bay.

We had a bit more time up our sleeves so were able to casually pack our luggage into the Corolla at a leisurely pace and then headed a short distance north to Pakawau where we turned left and headed towards the west coast.

The road was sealed for a couple of kilometres but we knew this would soon run out as once you leave the beachside location there are few structures to be seen where people live and why seal a road where people don't live!

The early part of the journey was on the aptly named Pakawau Bush Rd as the road soon entered dense native bush before emerging and continuing on Dry Rd,which wasn’t so aptly named, as today the surface was wet from the light rain falling.

At this point we had reached the vast Whanganui Inlet which we were to follow for the next 45 minutes crossing numerous causeways which straightened the road rather than following the coast which would have been nigh on I possible due to the fact that the dense bush came down to the road.

We had crossed from the Golden Bay to the West Coast of the South Island in a relatively short distance and if the road continued along the coast we would eventually get to Karamea, which is where we are heading in a couple of days time.

Then we came across a surprise, sealed road again!

As bush gave way for some green pasture and grazing animals a sign told us that we were now in the community of Mangarakau which was obviously important enough to have a kilometre or so of sealed road although there was no more than half a dozen houses on that strip of seal. All seemed rather strange given the many kilometres of unsealed road we had passed over since leaving Pakawau.

The Dry Road now joined the Pakarau River running below towering granite cliffs and headed west towards the coast just a short distance away.

We took a side road down to the beach where the easterly wind that had been prevailing for the last few days was making a good size surf crash in on this remote piece of coastline.

Well not quite that remote, as there was a caravan with an awning, freedom camping just far enough back from the beach to avoid the steady onshore breeze.

One of the people staying there was walking along the beach decked out in yellow waterproof gear and just beyond the surf line in the misty rain was a fishing vessel heading north close into the coast.(You can just make the boat out in the photo of the surf and the person dressed in yellow.)

We could have returned to the Dry Road and continued further south to get as far south as the Anatori River but we had our next accommodation to get to and surprisingly it had taken us an hour and a half to get this far and we still had the return journey to do.

The tide was coming in as we made the return journey over the numerous bridges and causeways and it was apparent that as in Golden Bay the water flowed in just as fast.

By the time we got back to the sealed road just short of Pakawau we had passed or should I say they had passed us going in the other direction, just two cars. We think we haven’t before been in such an isolated part of the whole country as this northwest corner of the South Island.

With the heavy cloud cover still above Golden Bay we made good speed to our next accommodation just short of Takaka up another unsealed road to where the tramp up the Parapara trail began, not that we intended to take this walk of several hours return in the next two days we are here.

Our host was there to greet us as our Air BnB apartment was located behind their home which was on a sort of hobby farm.

Our previous apartment that we had left this morning had an absentee owner and you definitely get a different feel for where you are staying when the owner also lives there or at least nearby.

We had had our sightseeing for the day and so we were happy to chill out as the afternoon wore on to dinner time. Like the previous place there was no television but we did have the internet and therefore we could at least dial in to some streaming of television including watching the news, although we don’t really know why we bothered as nothing has changed with the Ukraine crisis and COVID numbers in NZ.A catch up of a couple of Coro St programmes was worthwhile however and we called it a day happy that we had explored another little part of this wonderful and scenic country we were fortunate enough to be born in and have lived in all our lives.

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