Golden Bay is located at the far northern corner of the South Island. It has the recognition as the sunniest portion of the entire country of New Zealand. My life have been fairly itinerant over the past few weeks, so I was looking forward to the ability to stay in one place for a bit.  While Kaikoura was very nice, the Holiday Park where I was staying really did not have a comfortable place to sit and rest for day or so.   I suspect that much of the usership of the holiday parks does not stay there for longer  than one day, nor do they stay at the park during the day. So, the holiday parks rarely have things along the lines of a living room or a lounge to sit and relax during the day.  By this point of my trip, I had been moving from place to place on day after day, so. So, the opportunity just to stay put for a few days was very attractive to me.

I spent a day in Nelson, mainly to take care of a few errands such as film developing, some shopping, and getting a haircut.  After Nelson, I went up towards Takaka, just to the west of Abel Tasman Park.  There, I sat around for a few days, read a few books, and updated this website with most of the stuff I had done since Wanaka (Glaciers,  Kaikoura).  I did a few walks, sat around a bit more, and then headed up towards Picton for the crossing to Wellington.

During the late 60s and early 70s Golden Bay was a destination for a number of the hippies and other types who wanted to drop out of society and live their own 'alternative' type of existence.  While I was there, I came across a book review in the local newspaper. Courtney Love's mother, whose name I forget, wrote a biography/tell-all book about her life with her eccentric daughter. It turns out that in the late 60s or early 70s. The family, not yet including Courtney Love, decided to drop out of the United States and start a new life in New Zealand. These were the typical hippies of North America, in that they were the spoilt children of the prosperous suburbs of the early to mid '60s.. They were in the luxurious position of being able to make a 'political statement' or take a stand and renounce life in the United States, and move to another country and establish their own organic Farm commune. Courtney followed the family, about three or four months after they emigrated from the United States to New Zealand. Apparently she was just as much of a terror then as she is now. After about a month, she returned to the United States. The rest of the family stayed on in Golden Bay, for about another year. When they  originally came to New Zealand, they had some very nice, idealized visions of what life would be like living on an organic farm, leading the 'sustainable' lifestyle, and living off the land. What they did not realize was that farming is work. Farming entails a lot of work.  While they were quite content to profess as to the necessity of a sustainable lifestyle, on an organic farm, when they were living in the commune or some other subsidised existence on the West Coast of the United States, they soon discovered the realities of agrarian economics.  Their own farm in Golden Bay was dismal failure. As the naïve, cobbled children of a prosperous suburb, they kept to their Mother Earth Magazine ideals and mismanaged their own farm. They also managed to antagonize most of their neighbors. The father of the family accidentally burned his entire crop, and also risked setting the neighboring farmers crops on fire. After a year, they returned to the United States.

Like the rest of New Zealand, Golden Bay boasts some so spectacular scenery. The drive from the wine producing region around Nelson to Golden Bay, involves passage over Takaka Hill. Takaka Hill is a very narrow and winding mountain road.

While I was in Golden Bay, I visited several places:

 

Wharariki beach.

The Farewell Spit

Te Waikoropupu Springs ('Pupu Springs')

The Abel Tasman track.

 

 

Map of the Golden Bay Area.  The highlighted areas are hyperlinked to the appropriate page.