Cape Farewell, New Zealand

Cape Farewell is the most northern point of New Zealand’s south island, located in the Golden Bay. It’s one of the most romantic spots that I’ve seen in NZ, and you can walk around here for hours amidst a beautiful landscape made of wide sand beaches and mountains.

After our departure from the NZ west coast, we took a long road to the north of the south island: the Golden Bay. This place is famous for its amazing beaches and landscape and we couldn’t miss this in our NZ travel.

So we had a long drive to the Golden Bay and even more if we wanted to reach the very last village of the bay called Colingwood. We went a bit further to Cape Farewell as our Backpackers Hotel (The “Innlet Backpackers”) was located after Colingwood. We were the only clients there (one of the advantages of the winter season again, there are very few tourists to enjoy the most beautiful places) and had a very charming house to ourselves. In the main room was a quote by E.B. White (an American writer) which we loved. Here it is:

“I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes, this makes planning my day difficult…”

We decided not to change the world, but just enjoy our time there, so planning the day was easier.

We wanted to explore the whole area by walking around for hours. The walk began at Puponga where the road of the Golden Bay ends. From there, we walked along the “Farewell Spit”, a very long sand beach close to the bay and offers an amazing view in the morning. From there, we crossed the Spit towards the direction of the ocean, leaving the Golden Bay behind us to reach the Tasman sea. Then, we walked along the Tasman Sea for some hours to finally reach Cape Farewell. You need to climb a bit to reach the little lighthouse of the cape, but once you’re there, the panoramic view over the whole area is simply stunning.

We then went to Wharariki Beach, famous for its giant rocks on the beach, and when it’s low tide you might find it puzzling how these huge rocks landed on the sand beach. It’s also a place with a lot of sea-otters playing around, and if you’re lucky, you can see some, playing around and being innocently foolish; and of course, a lot of sheep everywhere!

The way back to Puponga (where we left our car) is a long walk from inside the land. And even if we didn’t change the world, we had one hell of a good time there!

To be continued…

geschrieben von vicuna am 2011-01-18 in #Orte #nature #mountains #sea #landscape #location #beach #cape #new-zealand #travel-destination #travel-tips