Before embarking on next year’s Paitua I thought I would shake the cobwebs off this interweb thing and tell you what we’ve been up to recently.
Ticking off the bucket list
November, 2025
After a few months in one place (home) our feet started to itch so we treated The Egg to one of the new 1 year COFs, and dawdled off to Golden Bay on the top left corner of the South Island. On a previous quick trip we had missed getting to Totaranui, and I’ve been envious reading about motorhomers braving the narrow road to the Doc camp ever since. Bucket list #1.
Cape Farewell is the northernmost point of the South Island – BL #2 – And Farewell Spit is there too – BL #3.
And then there is the Whanganui Inlet and Anatori, the most southern car-accessible point on the West Coast. – BL #4.
Also: Cobb Dam and Harwoods Hole (BL #5 & 6) because we haven’t been there, but not Pupu Springs, because we have
That’s quite a list for one small corner of the country, so we switched on dawdle mode and started to tick them off slowly. And just to clarify, these are not the only items on the BL, but are probably the only NZ ones left.
Also, I hate the term “bucket list”.
BL #1 – Totaranui
One of the stops on the Abel Tasman Trail which I will never walk due to an aversion, although it’s extremely lovely and I strongly recommend it. It’s not such a scary road, plenty wide with slightly corrugated gravel to slow down the hoons, and we stayed for 3 days because it’s so good there that I’ll never tell anyone about it. So was Awaroa, courtesy of the water taxi, so no tedious tramping for me.
We stayed for a couple of nights at the Pohara Top 10 to catch up with Jill’s cousin Sue, Ian, and their dog Miss Daisy, then …
BL #2 & 3 – Cape Farewell and Farewell Spit
28 Nov 2025
I love a good long beach drive, and if you can add in a worthwhile compass point and a few birds I’m a happy chap. There’s only one way for the public to get along the spit – Farewell Spit Eco Tours – so we parked up at the Collingwood Motor camp, enjoyed their excellent bathrooms, and set off at 6:30am the next day. It’s a low tide tour, of course.
Our driver, Allan, had a great sense of humour and a well-rehearsed patter backed by in-depth knowledge, and he stopped to pick up the two bits of litter we saw in over 25 km of beach. They don’t go all the way to the end to leave the gannet colony alone, and you’re not allowed to walk on the beach above the high tide mark, so we felt that we were in a Very Untouched Place. There were occasional seals but don’t expect lots of birds.
A detour to Cape Farewell on the way back meant we can now tick off every major compass point around the two main islands.
BL #4 – Whanganui Inlet and Anatori
29 November, 2025
Only 50 km as the Kororo flies from Kohaihai, the northernmost road on the true West Coast, but 472 km by car, this is the southern-most car-accessible point on the West Coast of Golden Bay. We drove in past the vast mudflats of the Whanganui Inlet to Paturau on the coast, and hopped on our bikes to ride down a spectacular coast road too narrow for The Egg. The road continues to service farms but we were stopped by a thigh-deep “ford” where we watched locals coming down the road on the other side on their quad bikes for a leisurely dip in the ice cold river. We biked back and took a slow drive back along the now full and very lovely Whanganui Inlet.
The Pakawau Camping Ground was a peasant place to stay for a night before the next day’s small hike across the dunes to Wharariki Beach, famous for a hole in a rock. It’s a typical West Coast Beach, wild and vast and impressive like all of them, so I took no photos until we got back to the carpark and found the cafe closed and guarded by the resident peacock.
We stopped for a night at the Golden Bay Camping ground (the Best in the bay) after an unreviewable late lunch at the iconic Mussel Inn – if you can’t say something nice etc – although it was during a powercut and the roaring fire and impromptu live music did make up for it..
Max elevation: 60 m
Min elevation: 3 m
Total climbing: 813 m
Total descent: -810 m
Total time: 03:07:32
Battery use: 50%
BL #5 – Cobb Dam
1 December, 2025
At last, a bit of real climbing – an unrelenting 850 m up a gravel road through the spectacular Kahurangi National Park. I didn’t realize how much I had missed it. Not. A few months ago, after 3 months of Alpine biking around the elevated parts of Italy and the Balkans, we thought that 800 m hills were a great way to warm up in the morning, but we have returned to our usual level of fitness. We used a lot of power.
We parked in a rare wide spot at Sam’s Creek on the Cobb Valley Road, and if you’re reading this and plan to the same, that’s as far as you should go, and in fact the Blue Hole 5 km back would be even better. It’s very narrow above there, and far too lovely to waste on driving. There was the last of the snow on the peaks above the dam and the katabatic wind sweeping the length of it slightly reduced its charm when we descended the 200 m from the summit. Jill rode the full length of it, straight into the aforementioned breeze and both our batteries were very nearly empty when we got back.
We stayed that night in a freedom camping spot back towards Takaka where we were woken by the trucks arriving at 7 am. The front-end-loader driver laughed as he said “Well we have to be here and awake at 7 so why not you lot. Best time of the day!”
We moved on over the Takaka Hill, not pausing to do Harwoods Hole because the low cloud blanketed the tops. We’ll be back.
Max elevation: 1056 m
Min elevation: 177 m
Total climbing: 1406 m
Total descent: -1399 m
Total time: 05:17:37
Battery use: 82%