The Journey: Golden Bay Trip

2016-05-29

So today we finally went to the place where we always wanted to go, Golden Bay. We decided to go yesterday night when we were having party and games. Which is why there were only 3 people including me on this trip. The other two being Aaron and MayMay. We always wanted to go there because we kept on hearing people saying about how beautiful is that place, how stunning is the view, how magnificent is the beach... Therefore before we hopped on the trip, we already had an rough idea where to visit.

We started the trip at 8am. It was a near two hours drive from Motueka until we reached the Flat Triangle car park, where we took a track to the Pillar Point Lighthouse but realised that we took the wrong way after 30 minutes. We were walking in the Farewell Spit beach, but it was low tide so we couldn't see the shape of the spit at all, which is why we didn't realised we took the wrong way. By the way it was such a coincidence because there were only one car parked at the Flat Triangle car park, and that belongs to one of our housemates. We left a note at her front mirror for a prank haha.

We studied the map and drove to the Wharariki car park because it was a shorter track from the car park to Wharariki Beach. It was just around 20 minutes from the car park to the beach, plus 10 minutes walking from sandy beach to the sea. The beach is huge, like HUGE. The rocks there are also huge. It was something I had never seen before in my life, those beaches I had seen were not even close to this one. The sands were so fine and your feet sink for about 15cm for every step you take. This beach is just, stunning. But unfortunately, the weather is so bad so the photos I took were not good at all.

Walked back to the car and drove to the Cape Farewell car park. 5 minutes walk from the car park and we reached the northest part of the South Island, Cape Farewell. The view from there is also great but again, the sun is right in front and the sea is like all-white. No good photos either. We took the Hilltop Track toward the Pillar Point Lighthouse, the expected time needed given by the notice board is 45 minutes but after 45 minutes of walk, we were not even close to the lighthouse. We had to walk into sheep farm on the way, all those sheep were dodging us haha. From far view, the lighthouse was not as nice as we thought, just a small structure, unlike the lighthouse we usually imagined. So we turned back and went back to the car as we still had other places to go. This lighthouse didn't worth those time.

The next place we went was Farewell Spit Cafe. This was probably my first time dining in a cafe in New Zealand. But for the view of Farewell Spit from the cafe, it's worth it. I had mocha for the first time since I came to New Zealand. We could also use the free binocular in the cafe to have a closer look at the birds and Farewell Spit too. It was around 3pm so it was already on high tide, we can clearly see the shape of Farewell Spit.

Finally we went to The Grove Scenic Reserve. There was a 10 minutes return track in the reserve. It was like a walk between big rocks, or limestone I'm not too sure. Well, there is not much to write about this track but the views inside the reserve is cool, especially when it was almost sunset.

We had a stop at a organic milk shop before we went home. It was advertised as the best real milk in New Zealand. It was an automated store, you enter the coins, you get the milk, for $2.5 per litre.

One of the reasons I don't like winter is that the sun sets at 4.30pm, unlike summer when the sun sets around 9pm. You just don't have enough time to play in a day. If I were to come back New Zealand for travel in the future, I will definitely come at summer.