The area we were heading to is right at the top of the South Island that just has one road in and out which is over a mountain pass so potentially, people who live here could quite easily get cut off.
Our first stop on this trip to Golden Bay - that is the name of the area - was to Collingwood and this was a bit of a pilgrimage for Derek. He had ancestors on his Dad's side emigrate to this exact spot in the 1800's, one of the Lunn's who married in to the Baker line, so we went looking in graveyards or tried to find them. Strange thing to be doing on Christmas Day but we didn't have any luck. There are lots of them around here though so it would be nice to make another trip specially to find them. No there's an idea!
We are so glad we didn't bring our picnic down here or we would have really know the meaning of the word sandwich. So we ate in the car park when we got back around 1pm along with lots of other people and a peacock.
We were packing as much as we could in to this day as we knew we wouldn't be back this way so next stop ws Puponga Beach. It was sheltered here and a great place to paddle or so I thought until I got out in to the sea.
It's not often that we just 'sit' so this was a good spot in which to do so. From here we then drove to a little place near Takaka called Waikoroupu Springs or Pu Springs as the local people call it, well it is a bit of a mouthful. The Maori language has lots of vowels that depending on the consonant in front or behind it changes the sound of the word - mind boggling. |
TTFN xx