Farewell Spit is a 35km long spit that juts out into the strait between the North and South Islands. It’s also the end of the road, literally, although not if you go on foot.
First is a walk through typical Kiwi farmland, complete with cabbage tree palms and sheep.
But the closer to the beach we get, the more windswept the landscape becomes. Well it is literally on the Roaring Forties.
In Golden Bay you can stumble on the most fascinating things, like Pupu Springs, the largest springs in NZ.
Despite its unfortunate name the water is as clear and as pure as you can get anywhere. Look at its extraordinary colour!
What Golden Bay really is about is golden beaches. These ones are near the village of Pohara. Since it was August when I visited I pretty much had them all to myself.
Time to revisit New Zealand again, this time the tip of the South Island, or more precisely, the Golden Bay area. Think of it as the Byron Bay of the South Island, only on a much smaller scale and probably how Byron was 15 years ago. Why? It’s the sunniest/warmest place on the South Island, is by the sea, and has a thriving alternative lifestyle community. But unlike Byron, which is accessible from Brisbane or the Gold Coast, this place is more isolated, accessible only via a dodgy mountain pass!
Another lovely spring time event is when the magnolia blossoms. I found this lovely tree in Wellington, New Zealand.
Can’t have a spring flower festival without a celebration of yellow – and daffodils!
And finally, we are at sea. The next patch of dry land is Australia, over 3,000km away.
We dip our feet in the cold water. Watch the breakers roll in. Enjoy the moment.
Thus, we come to the end of our journey at KareKare. Well, not quite.
How did I find out about this magical place in the first place? Through a little film called The Piano, where the beach is definitely the star. For all those who have seen it and thought that the beach was so picturesque due to the work of a good cinematographer, well, the camera in this case only captured the truth.
Finally, we reach the tide mark. White salt on black sand. Sea spray of fog-like proportions from the sheer pounding of the Tasman Sea. Disappearing footprints in the quicksand. Biting, whirling winds.
It reminds me of an old Crowded House song called Fingers of Love, which was incidently recorded in a house behind this beach. It captures the mood of this beach perfectly.
We pass chunks of driftwood, washed up by the sea, bleached white by the elements. They provide a stark contrast to the black sand that surrounds them. They are endlessly fascinating to study and beautiful to look at.
Leaving the cabbage palms behind, we reach the beach proper. The first thing that struck me was the immensity of the place: the soaring hills in mist, a desert of black sand that is a reminder of KareKare’s volcanic past.
Static and Silence 