“Salt in the air, sand in my hair.” Farewell Spit

April 7

My first decent sleep in five days. A/C! Yay!

We had a nice breakfast at Courthouse Cafe, same place we ate dinner at last night. There aren’t many options for eating in this town; we lucked out in that it had very tasty food for both dinner and breakfast.

Mitch packed up the car and I took a little walk around town. Blink! One Main Street, a few shops, historic plaques and street art.

At 10:30 a.m. on a clear blue sky day, we boarded “Maryann,” our 1980 4WD converted and raised ski field bus for our 6.5 hour Farewell Spit Eco Tour. It was fitted with special souped up tires on a converted chassis along with retrofitted airbag hydraulics to help ease the bumps and lumps on the sand and road.

Our no nonsense guide Paddy is also a local volunteer firefighter. He was ready to share some stories with us. However, before we got underway he gave us the option for a full refund. He said if an earthquake happened while we were out on the spit, a tsunami would likely sweep us all away and our families would be reading about it in the news. So because of that concern, he gave everyone the option to get off and receive a refund. No takers and no scaredy cats. We took out our phones, texted the kids and family to say what we were up to and along with all the other brave tourists stayed aboard.

As Paddy started up Maryann and drove away from town, he told us that tomorrow the tour leaves at 11:30 a.m. Some days it leaves at 3:00p.m. Other days, it’s at 6 a.m. It’s totally tide dependent because we will be driving on a spit, a narrow coastal land formation anchored to the coast at one end.

This tour is the only way to access the entire length of the spit by vehicle.

Farewell Spit is an internationally renowned bird sanctuary. Leaving town we saw white-faced herons, black swans, pied oystercatchers and shags in the Aorere River estuary. We saw godwits who fly 6,800 miles from Alaska for 12 days straight. We hadn’t even arrived on the spit yet and we spotted all these birds on the bus ride out!

We also saw a cockle shell fishery and dredging baskets in the estuary.

NZ has exported cockles (NZ clams) to the USA for over 35 years.

Our first stop on the tour was Cape Farewell, a sandstone bluff on the northernmost part of the South Island with steep drop offs. Getting to it was quite the interesting and bouncy drive in full power all-wheel drive.

Named by Captain James Cook as he left NZ for Australia in March 1770, Cape Farewell was the last land seen by his crew as they departed the island.

The archway in the 500 million year old cliffs was caused by erosion and drops into the rough Tasman Sea. A few seals were lying on the rocks below. A 650 foot predator-proof fence was installed in 2020, creating a 6-acre sanctuary for sea birds, snails and geckos.

In the distance we could see Pillar Point Lighthouse, where the light comes on for one second then stays off for five then repeats all night long to warn ships afar of the landmass.

Puponga Farm Park provides a buffer zone to the spit and offers many walking trails. At Pūponga Point, we admired 65 million year old rocks against a backdrop of the Tasman Sea, including one named “Old Man Rock.” Paddy said that if we were left out in the wind and elements for that long, we’d probably also look withered up like this poor guy.

We drove along a back forest road through Kanuka and Manuka trees and then arrived on the sandy track landing on the other side of the spit.

Once on the sand, we drove up further to Fossil Point, the base of Farewell Spit.

Named for its fossilized creatures and shells, it is located at the western end of Golden Bay and provided our first glimpse of the spit.

There are no cars or pedestrians allowed beyond a 2.5 mile marker other than our organized tour, though we saw bikers and walkers. Paddy laughed at their stupidity, biking over potential quicksand or mistiming the tides. People have tried walking to the lighthouse, even though walkers are only permitted to walk that first section. There have been more than a few rescues that Paddy shared with us, including many he did himself. And the times the buses got stranded in quicksand — two at the same time apparently. On bigger tour days in the summer they can take multiple bus loads of people. I was glad to be safely seated on the bus and grateful we didn’t sink in any quicksand.

The spit was amazing. Comprised of quartz sand that has eroded from granite and other rocks on the west coast, it is half a mile wide and extends eastward for roughly 15 miles with sand dunes up to 100 feet high.

Driving on the spit, it was just us, the sea, and over 90 species of birds. We spotted white-fronted terns, turnstones from Siberia, red-billed gulls, caspian terns and royal spoonbills to name just a few. Migratory birds visit the spit to rest and feed in preparation for their long distance journeys.

It was mostly a straight shot driving on the sand but we sometimes needed to weave our way around the quicksand.

It was such a clear day that we could see Mt Taranaki, 108 miles away on the North Island.

We finally arrived at the lighthouse. We explored the area around the lighthouse with strict instructions from Paddy not to climb up or go past it. Party Pooper.

The original one was made of timber. The top glass crystals are just next to the current one in a small museum house. It weighs 60 tons.

The original lighthouse kept getting blasted by sand and wind and the timber decayed. In 1897, it was replaced by the current structure, the only steel latticework lighthouse in NZ. Like Motel 6, the light at this lighthouse is always on. Three small homes near the lighthouse are maintained for use by DOC, Maritime NZ and our Eco tour group in operator.

We ate paninis we bought from Courthouse Cafe, completing our meal trifecta from the same restaurant.

Back in the sand moving mobile, Paddy turned on the super overdrive 4×4 and we slowly climbed our way out of the lighthouse area and back onto the beach dodging the quicksand and driving at times in the shallow sea to ensure we didn’t sink in it.

We headed for the Barchan sand dunes, where apparently there’s a shipwreck underneath. These dunes are formed from westerly winds and move in an easterly direction.

We exited the bus and walked up the dunes made of fine, soft sand for a great panoramic view of the spit and Tasman Sea. Then, those brave (and young) enough to run down the steep dune, got the chance to do so.

Though we didn’t go that far, the end of the spit is six miles past the lighthouse and is home to the only sea-level gannet colony in the world. The colony began in 1962 with 60 birds and currently there are over 10,000.

On the way back, we first stopped at this tree in the middle of the beach. It washed ashore during a storm some 25 years ago and embedded itself deep in the sand and hasn’t moved since. Today, it’s a bit of a tourist attraction for those that make it this far out on the spit. Paddy let us out of the bus for a few minutes to snap some shots.

As the tide started coming in, we got back on the bus and headed back to Collingwood where we started the tour 6.5 hours earlier.

We then got in the car and drove two hours east to Nelson. We drove back over that stomach turning Tākaka Highway one more time, except this time was at dusk since we pushed the clocks back an hour the night before. Needless to say, it was a long day.