Well, Howdy again folks; we recently played host to friends of ours from the UK who are traveling around New Zealand, so we thought we'd take them to some local sights. First up, the Nelson Lakes. These are situated about an hour and a half's drive from our place and are a busy tourist spot in the summer season. The local town is called St Arnaud and it gets mobbed by campervans and midges, or sandflies, that eat you alive if you're not careful. Luckily it's winter and it's quite chilly, so no midges or campervans.
This is Rotoiti, or Small lake. Even in summer the water is a bit baltic; on a previous visit we went swimming, but not this time.
Note the "No Fishing" sign.
The lake is inhabited by giant eels, which are quite friendly.
Lots of 'em.
The duck lends scale. They average a metre in length.
My daughter eel spotting.
Although you can't fish for them here, they also live in the river down from mine and our neighbour has brought smoked eel over that he's caught. Very tasty!
This is Rotoroa, or Long Lake. Not so well populated by tourists; it's about a half hour drive away from Rotoiti, but picturesque nevertheless.
The next day we took the girls over Takaka Hill into the upper Tasman region. It's about two hours drive north of us. This panoramic view is taken from near the top of Takaka Hill at around 3,000 ft and looks north west into the Kahurangi National Park and over towards Golden Bay in the distance. In the late 60s and early 70s a lot of communes were set up in the area and some of the 'New Age' types have stayed on. It's no surprise that Police helicopters often patrol the hills around these parts for non-native foliage that can only be seen from up high...
Just outside of the town of Takaka is the Waikoropupu spring. In the days of yore it used to be a gold mine, but has been preserved since its waters, according to the blurb, are the second clearest in the world. Although it says not to touch the water, I couldn't resist dipping my hands in and taking a sip. The depth of the spring is 3 metres in parts and is so clear, the bottom looks only feet away.
Originally I wanted to take the picture with my daughter running away down the path with the sign in the foreground, but my wife said it was tempting fate too much, so I settled for this...
This rather imposing monolith is the Abel Tasman Memorial at the southern edge of Golden Bay, the place where Tasman first encountered New Zealand. When he first got here, he had an unfortunate meeting with the natives, whose aggressive behaviour frightened the Dutchman away, so he didn't stay long. Thing was, the natives weren't being aggressive, just their way of saying hello is dancing about in formation and waving what looks to a weary European sailor to be a weapon of war about vigorously!
The plaque at the base of the monument.
The southern edge of Golden Bay. Named after a gold rush back in the late 1800s, the name is still appropriate as land prices are very high here. A number of international celebs have homes out this way, including Shania Twain. Apparently Lee Atwood of North American Aviation was a keen huntin' shootin' fishin' kinda guy and regularly visited New Zealand.
Golden Bay looking north. At the farthest spit of land is Cape Farewell, a 15 mile sand spit off which the very first mine field in New Zealand waters was laid. This was done by the German Commerce raider
Wolf in 1917. Wolf's voyage was quite a tale; the ship was the first to carry a seaplane (a Friedrichshafen FF 33E, in case you're wondering) and sank a huge amount of tonnage. Anyhoo, only recently was the last time that one of
Wolf's mines washed ashore, in either 2006 or 2008, if I can remember correctly.
We really like this area and haven't done much exploring, but we are going to. What tends to keep tourists away is the rather steep and wyndy drive up Takaka Hill, but it's really not that bad. We want to go tramping along Farewell Spit in the near future. I'll keep you posted.