Farewell Spit

Pupu Springs, Farewell Spit, Havelock
December 4, 2008

There are many differences between staying in a hotel and in a caravan park. (Now that’s an understatement.) I want to make note of the so-called “wake-up call.” In a hotel the phone rings at your preferred time and a pleasant voice or recording informs you that it’s time for you get moving. In the Marahau Beach Camp this morning my wake-up call at six was an aggressive bite on the forehead (the only part of me not buried in the covers) by one of those buzztards, a sandfly. Yep, time to get up and smear my body with Deet.
Oh, here’s a helpful camping hint for you all. If you are out in the woods and you want to remove your nail polish and have neglected to bring polish remover, powerful insect repellent will do the job for you. You should (or shouldn’t) see my toenails. Although the morning got off to a rough start, Joe’s coffee helped my mood and the gorgeous weather made up for any sandfly interruptions.

Before I get on to the day’s activities, I have to tell you about last night. I came back to the van from the restroom around nine with my headlamp burning brightly (it was very dark out) and slid open the van’s side door. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the three young gentlemen playing cards at their van’s table. I quickly mumbled something like, “so sorry, I’ve got the wrong van” and quickly slid the door shut. Those vans all look alike to me…did I tell you it was really dark? When I told Joe what I had done he wanted to go back and slide their door open again and ask if they’d seen his wife. Very funny.

We headed north today and first stopped at Pupu Springs near Takaka that are supposed to be the clearest fresh water springs in the world. I don’t know if that is true, but they sure are pretty. The water bubbles up from the ground and in places the springs push the sand up so high that the area is called “dancing sands.” Looked to me like the sand was jumping rather than dancing, but I agree that “dancing sands” sounds better than “jumping sands.”

As most of you know, Joe is one to go to extremes and today we drove as far north as we could on the South Island to a place called Farewell Spit. It turned out to be a neat place with lots of birds and a great little café that overlooked the spit and Golden Bay. While we were there eating scones and drinking more coffee the tide was out which made it more interesting. The roads to these places were very twisty and mountainous and it took us a lot longer than we had planned.

Today we stopped for some take-out food (it’s called take-away food in Australia and NZ) and the lady asked Joe if he wanted to eat it there or take it away. He replied, “Yes.”
I tried to cover for him saying that it had been a very long day. She asked where we’d been and Joe said, “Cape Final,” meaning Farewell Spit. So, considering Joe’s comments and my forgetting what van we’ve had for a month we make a good pair. Sorry, Tommy and Dave, you may be caring for your senile parents (especially your mom) sooner than you thought.

We are now in the tiny port town of Havelock in the Marlborough Sounds area. The only gas station here shut down three days ago because the owner ripped some company off for over a million dollars. We are here with a quarter of a tank of gas left and we think we have enough to get us to Picton (where we catch the ferry to the North Island) tomorrow, but not enough to explore any of the sounds on our way there. So we’ll try to hunt up some gas tomorrow morning. The caravan camp guy said we could probably find some down by the marina. Oh, boy.

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