A few hours drive from the Abel Tasman Track brought us to Golden Bay on the north west corner of South Island where we at last had a steak and beer in the Mussel Inn as reward for finishing the great walk.
After dinner all we were looking forward to was a long hot shower and a nice warm bed … too bad the “hot tub near the creek” in our rather disappointing hostel turned out to be a rusty overgrown old bathtub 😦 Not exactly the kind of place we were hoping for and we left rather early next morning and drove to Collingwood for breakfast!
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WOW, Golden Bay is really really beautiful! Totally laid back with a relaxed Hippie flair and far away from everywhere else. Even the people living there refer to a shopping trip in the next bigger city as “going over the hill” 🙂 So what do you do when your feet are sore and the weather is supposed to be rainy for the next few days? Well we found the cutest little Bed & Breakfast in Takaka and adjusted to hippie time. Initially we only planned to stay two nights at the Waitapu Springs B&B, but Serge and Marie were such great hosts that we extended our stay twice. The huge breakfast buffet, fresh plums straight from the tree, a Spa right outside the door and a beautifully lazy atmosphere for reading and doing nothing made it almost impossible to leave at all.
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Takaka Hippie Heaven
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Dangerous kitchen graffiti
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OK we did not just bum out completely in Takaka. A day tip brought us to Te Waikoropupu Springs – ‘Pupu Springs’ – where about 14,000 litres of water per second surges from underground vents dotted around the reserve. Looks beautiful, but swimming or even touching is a no-no! At least we could refill our water bottles there 😉
Gone walkabout 