Wharariki & Cape Farewell

Last day

Today is my last day in Takaka before flying home tomorrow. I wanted to make the most of it, especially with the stunning weather.  Wharariki Beach had been highly recommended but it is only worthwhile visiting within 2h each way of the low tide time of about 1600.  That gave me a relaxing morning of yoga before breakfast, chilling before setting off around 1130.

I had invited 82 year old Tony to come along as well.  But he had planned on moving on today in the same direction.  So, we agreed that we would leave about the same time and meet up in Collingwood where he would park his freedom camper bus before joining me in my car.

I met up with Tony around 1215 at Collingwood.  He was held up slightly as he had to go to the ATM in his big bus, park, withdraw money and return to the accommodation to settle his bill before leaving in earnest.

Cape Farewell

We continued in my car towards Wharariki Beach.  The sealed road turned into unsealed gravel.  As we approached, the road split off to Cape Farewell, the northernmost tip of the South Island.  Since we had another three hours till low tide, we killed some time by going to Cape Farewell first.  Tony was handy as there were three sets of gates that we needed to open and close before arriving at Cape Farewell (and repeated on the return journey).

The scenery at Cape Farewell wasn’t new to me as I was here 11 months ago.  But it was nice to be back as it was stunning.  The tour buses were here and the crowd did take away the atmosphere a little.

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Wharariki Beach

It was a short drive from Cape Farewell to Wharariki Beach.  It was about 20 mins walk along on the grassy hillside and bushes before we arrived at the open grey sand dunes.  At 82 years of age, Tony was really impressive with his stamina, especially walking on the dunes which tend to sink in.

We eventually got to the flat open beach around 1330 where we could see the rocky outcrops in the sea which have been made famous by Microsoft Windows 10’s login screen photo.

We explored the beach separately.  Tony took refuge in a cave for shade.  He had been here many times before.  I tried finding the angle from which the Microsoft photo had been taken from but it wasn’t easy as I didn’t have a copy of the photo with me.

Someone had alerted me to the presence of seal pups on the low rocks on the beach.  I made my way there to see one playing in the water and another basking on the rocks.

After about 45 mins on the beach, we started our walk back to the car.  I thought we had been there through a period when the tide was adequately low already.  I dropped Tony back in Collingwood and continued back to my accommodation reaching there before 1600.

I enjoyed the garden and pools at Autumn Farm before grabbing a simple dinner of fried noodles from a takeaway in Takaka.