AntipodeanDiary: Mapua and Golden Bay

A tidy little 3 bedroom house for sale £45,000, in a nicely situated country town. Pity I only have a six month visa.

After leaving Reefton I headed north to Mapua, camping in a D.O.C. site for the night at St. Arnaud by Lake Rotoiti. This is a Department of Conservation area with some very good forest walks, with a lot of information on the conservation work that is being done.

Honey production in this area is big farming business, I was talking to one lady who manages 2000 hives. There are apiaries everywhere.

I arrived in Mapua April 5th and spent the Easter staying with friends. It was good to sleep in a bed and relax for a few days. Their garden extended down to the beach of the river estuary.

Plenty of wildlife.

After Easter I continued north west to Golden Bay. There was some beautiful scenery but the weather was not too good. I followed the coast road to Farewell Split.

Coffee and carrot cake at the cafe with views of the Spit.

The black dots in the water are Aussie black swans they have adapted to salt water and have become a pest, there are thousands of them all through Golden Bay

I drove across the cape to Whanganui beach, there is a campsite there where I intended to stay the night.

Access to the beach is across these sand dunes.

When I reached the beach the weather was defiantly on the turn and it started to rain, I got back to the van without getting too wet.

See the difference in the sky over about 2 hours in the last 6 pictures. The rain was set in for the day, so I decided not to stay but return to Collingwood for the night.

The following day I visited Pupu Springs, (Waikoroppupu) they claim to have the clearest water in the world and I don’t doubt that.

Spot the trout!

A cheeky poser. Whilst I was reading the sign.

I discovered another interesting forest walk to the source, or the resurgence of the Riwaka River.

The river starts from this cave under the mountain.

Earlier I mentioned the future intended renovation of the Reefton hydro station. This is an example of a similar project mostly done by a group of enthusiastic volunteers. This plant was in much the same state as the Reefton unit and after a lot of work it is now supplying 800MW per annum to the grid.