Sunrise reflections {Golden Bay}

On our last morning at Golden Bay I was up early to catch the sunrise, wild horses couldn't have kept me in bed knowing that it was the last golden opportunity I would have.

And the morning delivered in a big way.

The pools of water that lie on the beach at low tide are an incredible backdrop for sunrise reflections.

First, the most incredible pinks and deep purples appear in the blue hour, that hour before sunrise.

And as the sky lightens, the colours give way to brilliant blues, oranges and yellows as the sun creeps closer to the horizon.

The one thing that I was NOT expecting at all was the sun rising directly out the sea like a giant fireball. In my head, I'd imagined it coming up over the mountains to the right, so to see it rising directly out of the ocean gave my heart such a happy leap inside - I cannot recall EVER seeing this in my lifetime before. In Wellington we have too many hills in the way, and most of the time we visit beaches in NZ we've been on the west coast (and seen the sun go down) rather than the east so this was such a treat.

 

As you can see I found it impossible to stop taking photos - I just wanted to commit this beautiful sight to memory for all time!

Spending this morning down at the beach on my own couldn't have been a more perfect end to what had been the most incredible week from start to finish.

Soaking in this incredible richness of colour and seeing the sun rise up to meet me, well there just aren't words. It's a moment I'll never forget.

The most dramatic and scenic beach in NZ - our big bang finale on Wharariki Beach

Before planning our trip to Nelson and Golden Bay, I'm pretty sure I hadn't even heard of Wharariki Beach. But once I saw some photos of it, I just KNEW we had to make time to visit. And the fact that it's a 20-30 minute walk over farmland to get there, plus there's a high likelihood of seeing baby seals (although we'd already had our share of seal scares earlier in the day) makes it all the more rewarding once you get there.

You do need to time the trip just right though as you can only get down to the beach and explore properly at low tide and so we'd kept a close eye on the tide times on the Surf Forecast website and I was pretty darn happy when I saw that the low tide would be at 6pm so the chance of being there for a good sunset was high!

We bought some takeaways from the Old School Café on our drive out to Wharariki and ate them at the carpark when we arrived, after bumping along a gravel road for a good 5km. The walk takes you up onto a ridgeline in farmland and is very well marked with a shelly path - this is a good thing as you are up quite high with a big drop on one side and it is reasonably narrow. Plus I can imagine that just like us, others are just as keen to capture sunrise and sunsets at this famous spot so they'd be potentially making the journey in very dim light in at least one direction.

After winding your way through several paddocks, the farmland eventually gives way to the dunes and then the beach.



FAR OUT! This is a beach with a capital B.

Wharariki Beach is arguably the biggest, most dramatic beach I have ever seen. The sheer size of the beach, even enclosed as it is on each end means you have to walk for a good half an hour from end to end. Once you add in the extra time for exploring the sea caves and seal spotting, it is easy to spend hours here.

Mark did do a bit of a recce into a few of the sea caves (which all stunk to high heaven of seal) but with the early morning fright we'd had on Farewell Spit still playing heavily on the boy's minds, they weren't keen for Mark to go too far in and kept yelling at him to come back - they weren't keen on Dad being eaten by a seal! And apart from spotting one baby seal high up on a rock, we didn't experience the volume we'd expected - it turns out they were all up the other end of the beach from where we were which we later found out - but as we'd visited Red Rocks not that long ago we felt we'd still gotten our seal quota this year!

The offshore Archway Islands make for an incredible centrepiece to photos here, and they are constantly changing shape as you walk from one end of the beach to the other. I wasn't the only photographer with tripod trying my luck here, but again the vast scale of the beach made it unlikely that we would get in each other's way!

We spotted what looked very much like a Turtle rock - can you see it?!

 

As you can see I found it hard to stop taking photos with such an interesting subject.

 

And one thing this beach definitely had with its vast expanse of sand and the incoming tide was reflections galore. It was a photographer's paradise. Although when a set of waves came in, they would keep on rolling in for ages so even standing far back from the surf was no guarantee that you wouldn't get wet or have to hightail it mid-shot.

There's no other people I'd rather have been with in this glorious spot than these three. Although what is up with Mylo's face in this shot - ha ha!

You can get a small appreciation for the epic sense of scale at the beach from this black and whiate shot above with the lone walker in the shot.

 

 

I'd been hoping for a few clouds to add some drama into the scene but it was completely clear on this night. The sun sank behind the southern end of the beach casting a golden glow over the whole area. We also eventually found out that the seals were playing in the surf and on one of the islands at the opposite end of the beach but we could only hear them rather than see them as we made our way back to the dunes.

It was very hard to pull myself away, but with two weary little people out past their bedtime and still a long walk back to the car, I reluctantly packed up and we headed back over the hills in the dying light to the car.

I feel richer for having experienced the magic and wonder of this incredible landscape and I very much hope we are able to visit here again one day.

This night was the perfect, fitting big-bang finale to what had been an incredible week exploring the Nelson and Golden Bay area - this part of NZ packs an incredible punch in terms of amazing and varied scenery all within a couple of hour's drive of wherever you may happen to be.

Our holiday was so spectacular - from the snow capped mountains that surrounded us on our journey to the crystal clear azure waters we travelled on in the Abel Tasman, from dramatic big beaches to calm kayaking on the estuary, and so many sunrises and sunsets to sigh endlessly over  - it will all live on in our memories for a very long time to come.

A walk on Farewell Spit, and virgin kayakers

There’s something rather satisfying about visiting the furthest point of an island – in this case the most north-western point of the South Island. Farewell Spit is an amazing sight – stretching out 27km as it does into the Tasman sea. You can only walk on a very small part of the base of the spit – if you want to go further you’d have to go on one of the eco tours which looked pretty expensive and we knew we could do a loop walk at the base of the Spit and still get a good feel of what it was like. If you scroll down and look at the map further below in the post you can get a sense of just how much of the Spit we covered in our 1 hr 30 min walk - a very small amount!

The Spit itself as an important ecological site, here's what an NZ Bird website has to say:

Farewell Spit is particularly important as a staging area for migratory shorebirds on the East Asia - Australasia migratory shorebird flyway. A total of 83 species of wetland birds have been recorded at the spit. Its mudflats provide a major moulting site for about 12,000 black swan. The spit is also home and breeding grounds for colonies of Australasian gannet, Caspian tern, southern black-backed gull, red-billed gull and variable oystercatcher.

Incredibly, we were first to arrive at the Spit – we knew this because we had to open the farm gate and drive over a cattle stop to get in! We headed off over a number of stiles and through paddocks of sheep over to the west coast of the Spit. It was so lush and green! 

 



 

 

When we got to the western side of the spit, it was like a typical West Coast beach with waves pounding the shore at regular intervals.

And sand as far as the eye could see - and then some.

We walked and walked.

And here's where one of our more entertaining tales from the holiday occurred. As we walked along the beach I spotted a massive dead seal lying on the beach with flies buzzing all over its head. I pointed it out to the others and we walked on by at a safe distance commenting on 'the poor thing'. The next thing you know, the 'poor, dead seal' lifted its head and looked at us. You should have heard our screams of horror! We were SO NOT expecting that. Talk about fright material.

So, not dead, but not far off. Clearly it was pretty unwell and unable to move though.

With hearts beating much faster, we carried on and turned inland to find the track back over to the eastern side of the Spit, after all taking a nervous wee in the dunes - I blame the seal experience for that!

The eastern side is so much more sheltered and gentle, and we are sure we spotted a good few thousand of the 12,000 black swans that live here bobbing gently in the water.

The view further out the spit appears almost as a mirage in places with farmland giving way to low lying dunes.

We finished off our walk with a coffee at the café overlooking the spit. I can think of worse places to stop and enjoy the view!

Although our walk had taken us from one side of the spit to the other, we barely made a dent in the total area - our walk is the small square below - The Triangle Flat/Spit Track walk.





We'd deliberately set out early so that we would be back to the bach in time for high tide on the estuary just after 11am which we'd missed in daylight hours the past two days.

Our bach really was so quintessentially Kiwi - we just loved staying here and for $90 a night it was an absolute steal - with the free use of kayaks included in this! We found the bach here on Bookabach should you ever be in the area and wanting a gorgeous place to stay we can highly recommend it!

We took turns taking the boys out on the estuary doing laps around the power pole out in the middle of the estuary as we got our confidence up.

Serenaded all the while by this tui in the trees above us.

It was so peaceful being out on such calm water. The only sound the splash of the paddle as it cut through the water.

The boys were keen to have a go at paddling and practiced on land before giving it a whirl.

 

 

Noah was even brave enough to take the kayak out on his own - we knew that with the water only being waist high it was as safe as it gets!

 

 

This was definitely one of the highlights of the holiday for the boys - they loved trying out a new outdoor activity and it's one we will be keen to try out again when we next get the opportunity!

Sadly, we've nearly reached the end of the road in our Nelson and Golden Bay holiday series....but we still went with a big bang on the biggest most scenic beach in NZ....Wharariki beach - that post to come!