The Journey: One-Day Trip to Takaka

It's just been a week since we came back from Queenstown and now we are out again for a one-day trip to Takaka. And from now on, maybe we will be going for one-day trips every Sunday haha. By the way I forgot to bring my camera out for the trip, I think this is probably the worst thing that happened to me today, what a way to start May.

So this morning we went out at 8am, five of us. First we went to Riwaka Resurgence. The crystal pool there is really clear, and you can actually see the pool blue in colour that you won't believe your own eyes. The water surges out from a big cave in the rock. I still don't know why it's blue haha.

We arrived at our main destination Anatoki Salmon Farm in Takaka at around 12pm. There you can fish your own salmons in the salmon farm, weigh it and choose how you want your salmons to be prepared by the kitchen. We caught two salmon. To be more accurate, I caught two salmons, haha. Half of one salmon was eaten raw as sashimi and the another one and a half were smoked. The whole fish was smoked with basil and garlic while the half salmon was smoked with natural woodstock. Both of them are freaking nice. The species of this salmon are not that suitable to be eaten raw as sashimi, it's very chewy but still it's not bad for me. I prefer the salmons in Lake Pukaki more.

Honestly that is my first time fishing and first time killing a raw fish and first time eating my own fished fish haha. A little sense of accomplishment.

Then, we went to the New Zealand's largest freshwater spring and also known as one of the springs with the clearest freshwater in the world, the Te Waikoropupu Springs. From the viewpoint, where we walked 10 minutes there from the car park, you can have the overall view of the springs. It's so clear that you can see the bottom of the spring, very clearly. You can count how many rocks are there, and tell what is inside because it's really that clear! I never knew there are so many good places to visit in Tasman region.

After that we went to Rawhiti Caves. Reached there and started around 4.30pm. The track is freaking hard, it's so steep and slippery all the way. It's been a long time since I sweat that much. The cave is really magnificent, the stalagmites are hanging all over the top of the cave, and there are really a lot of them. You can also see some small plants on the rocks where sunlight can shine on it. Water is dripping a little by little all the time but there are no bats or things like that here so the observatory platform is well-preserved and clean. The whole track to and from Rawhiti Cave took us a little more than one hour, our stamina are not good enough haha.

That sums up our trip for the whole day, time flies and our previous Sunday is over already. Looking forward for next week!