We were staying in Pohara, which is on the road to North Abel Tasman Park; only 45 min’s drive into Abel Tasman park from our small hostel. Em & I decided that we would head into the park and have a day of walking and scenery, we headed to Totaranui which has a number of shorter walks starting here; of which we chose the 4 hr return Gibb Hill walk. The name gives the type of walk away, up a hill; lovely and peaceful and all alone. Alone that was until THEY came out of the grass, they being a pair of Californian Quails closely followed by 3 off the smallest chicks we’ve seen; we didn’t even see them to begin with as they were hidden in the grass. What made us stop was the noise and the running around from the parents, we stopped and then from the corner of our eyes we could see something running up the ‘tyre tracks’ and when we looked very closely; there they were all running up the hill after Mum & Dad. After a few minutes they shuffled off into the bush and headed up the hill recalling the amount of wildlife we have seen whilst over here in New Zealand, we reached the top took the photo’s and headed down from a wonderful view of Golden Bay to the North; and Abel Tasman to the South. Then as we reached the spot of our previous encounter with the ‘feathered Family’ I thought to take the camera out ‘just in case’ they were there again; and bugger me if the exact same reaction to our presence made us stop and look around. Check the photos, I’ve tried to get one of them; but they are so small that they hide in the blades of grass and you really have to watch where you step. We reached the car park to find that a girl named Nina, whom had stayed with us the night before at the same hostel; and had parked next to our van ‘The Bug’ had put a slight dent in our girl on the rear off side panel. No way of me getting it out, no point in spending the money at this stage; so ‘she is scared for life’ We did the Gibb Hill walk in only 3 hours including all of our stopovers, so we headed out on another walk along the Awaroa track; not a lot to say other than both were good walks. We headed back to the hostel ready for a beer and a good night sleep, we had a busy day ahead of us tomorrow; we had heard of a Chocolate shop in a township called Collingwood. We awoke with energy, brought on by the thought of a visit to ‘Rosy Glow Cottage’ the hand made chocolate shop (Em’ says Yummmmm) We arrived at Rosy’s on time for the 1000hr’s opening time, Em’s eyes were the size of the Moon as she walked inside to see what was on offer; huge hand made Chocolates of every sort. Liqueurs on the top shelf, standards on the middle and the ‘specials’ on the lower shelf; all at $3.50 each (£1.50 ish) The shopping list and bill was rising very quickly, we decided to stay in Collingwood for the night (mainly due to the petrol station being shut at weekends WHY?????????) We thought that one more night in Takaka would be good on our way back towards the ferry over to the North Island, we arrived at Kiwiana to be greeted by Jules our host; what a fantastic place and person. FIVE nights later we had to reluctantly depart and head out, we stayed five nights instead of one as Jules was a great host and helped us with all our W.O.F (MOT in UK) needs for The Bug; she flew through at only $110 (£44 ish) including the test itself at $45. Whilst here in Takaka we did some great ‘in fills’ considering we were going to head out after one night.
One of them being the Rawhiti Caves, at the top of a 2 hours walk/climb above Takaka; worth the effort just to see the scale of it. Another highlight has to be our walk along and over the Dunes at Farewell Spit, a 26 Km Nature reserve at the ‘end’ of Northwest South Island; yet another amazing sight and a great day out. Also Em’ and I have found our place to live over here (we wish!) a small township located in the Golden Bay called Patons Rock. We had to make plans to leave the South Island, so we headed out of Golden Bay to head back towards the Ferry at Picton.
