Advertisement
Published: June 27th 2005
Edit Blog Post
Heading up from Abel Tasman I briefly stopped off at Te Waikoropupu Springs (aka Pupu Springs which is slightly easier to say!) - amazingly clear freshwater springs. From there I continued north to Collingwood, one of the last 'towns' before you get to Cape Farewell, the northern most tip of the South Island.
When I arrived at the hostel in Collingwood the owner told me that he and the other 5 guests were off to Wharariki Beach on the west coast that afternoon and asked if I want to come too - it was somewhere I planned to go anyway and, quite liking the idea of walking with others for a change, I said yes. What I hadn’t factored in was the weather... if I had it may have changed my mind ;0) I’ve actually done the walk again since on a nice sunny day and was amazed by how much I’d missed the first time when I was more focused on fighting the rain and wind! Despite the best attempts of the weather the beach and the views from it were beautiful and we saw young seals (by the size of them we reckon they were akin to teenagers)
who decided to come and pose for photo’s just a few metres infront of us. We were then given the option of a 35 min ‘very beautiful’ walk back to the car or a 20min ‘nice walk’ back. We were already soaked through so opted for the 35 min walk....and after about 10mins were cursing the fact that we hadn’t taken the 20 min walk ;0) I couldn't really comment on the scenery as it was rather too well obscured by rain, clouds and fog and to start with at least I was rather more focused on not doing myself damage as we slid and skidded our way up and down the hill top (and sometimes cliff top) path. What would normally be a narrow, steep path in good weather was an absolute mud bath after all the rain. The continued rain combined with really strong winds meant that going up hill we had to ditch our walking poles in favour of pulling ourselves up using the wire fences (fortunately they weren’t the barbed wire type!!!). For an extra challenge there was the occasional missing guide post and disappearing path......
So, if I’ve built up a picture of a
thoroughly miserable walk it was actually really good fun. Honest! It was a great team effort with everyone waiting for everyone else at the next guide post and by the time we all ended up sliding down slopes through sheep and cow poo we were laughing too much to care. I haven’t quite been able to bring myself to go back and do that walk again but maybe before I leave.....
I opted not to do a trip along Farewell Spit itself - $70-$90 seemed a bit steep to see only a bit more than you can do by yourself. Instead I made use of the car and had a great day driving through parts of the Kahurangi National Park down to the Anatori River on the West Coast (I’ll be back to do the 4 day Heaphy trek when it warms up a bit!) and walking around the base of the spit in time for sunset.
As I was about to leave Collingwood the hostel owner asked if I would like to come back and work here for a few weeks as a Woofer - essentially you get free accommodation and food in exchange for a few
hours work each day (cleaning, gardening, feeding chickens, walking the puppy -who is currently in disgrace.... again). It’s beautiful round here and as the pennies are starting to run out and I’m not too keen to go back to office life just yet this sounded like the perfect alternative. So I’ll be back again after my week with the car is up..... In the mean time it's down to Murchinsonin the Buller Valley area....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.234s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 26; qc: 113; dbt: 0.1427s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb