Totaranui- Bird Paradise

Real-time

This must surely be the grandest entrance to a DOC Camp in all of New Zealand. This is Totaranui at the northern end of the Abel Tasman National Park and the Abel Tasman Great Walk. The trees, alternate London Plane & Macrocarpa, were planted in 1856 by the first European settler & landowner, Williams Gibbs. He wanted an imposing entrance for visitors arriving by sea (the only means of access back then), and he sure got it, albeit many years after his passing. 

Gibbs established a farm of over 7000 acres here at Totaranui and supplied Nelson with milk & dairy products. He also built two holiday cottages which he rented out to holidaymakers. Even back then this little pocket of coastline was a popular holiday destination. Sadly the Macrocarpa looked to have succumbed to disease or old age as there were only large stumps in their spots! Ngatara, the farm homestead (see the link in the next paragraph for photos) is now owned by the Crown and used for school camps.

If you don't arrive by boat or on foot, Totaranui is accessed via a 12km narrow winding gravel road from Pohara in Golden Bay. And it's where we have been parked up for the last week. We've driven the road before but just as a day trip in the ute, this time we brought the 5th-wheeler along for the ride.

The road was fine, it's up and over a small range and not as bad as some we've been on. Just a couple of sharp switchbacks and a little narrow in places but with lots of areas to pull over if you meet other vehicles or need to let others pass. We timed it to cross over late morning when most of the traffic would have been ahead of us and any day-trippers would still be enjoying their visit.

The DOC campground is a very popular destination for holidaymakers and at the height of the summer season there can be over 1000 people in camp. It's a huge place with over 23 large bays for camping, each bay can hold anything from 10-20 campsites; fire pits (bring your own firewood) and picnic tables are a central point where campers can gather. There also fresh water available in every bay, a refuse collection area nearby and a dump station for campers (not day trippers as it's very expensive to empty septic tanks this far out).

Each bay is bordered by bush and some have the estuary as a backdrop, they stretch right along the beach although there is no camping on the ocean side of the road. There are numerous ablution blocks dotted about with flushing toilets, cold showers and more impressively, laundry tubs with hand mangles!

We have our bay to ourselves and at the most there have only been 8-12 vans in each night. If I didn't know any better I'd think we were here by ourselves. Most have headed to the end of the camp beside the estuary where they can access the boat ramp and do some easy whitebaiting in the numerous streams that flow from the estuary.

We arrived in the sunshine and had a couple of lovely days before the heavens once again opened up and it rained solid for nearly three days. Luckily we have been able to access the internet through the big wet.  Netspeed has been a Godsend, although even with the big booster Yagi aerial pointing all the way across the bay to Nelson, it's been mostly borderline and often we have only been able to connect to read but not contribute.

Just like Kaiteriteri, Totaranui also has the same beautiful golden sand; this is looking south into the Park and towards Awaroa...

...and north to the end of the bay... 

 ...where the huge estuary empties into the ocean twice a day. 

This is just a tiny section of the estuary and at high tide it's at least thigh deep.

The bird life is prolific with, unusually, the most common sighting being of the Kereru/NZ Wood Pigeon.

I'm sure there's at least a few hundred birds around the camp; any casual glance into the surrounding bush, under the tree canopy or up to any bare trees produces three or four birds glancing down as they rest during the day. 

This one was perched precariously in a small bush; wings spread, sunning itself in the warm afternoon sun. 

I counted at least 20 birds feeding in a patch of tree lucerne which they have nearly stripped bare. 

They squabble, flap, bash and bumble about through the soft vegetation with most staying put as I pass by. It's such a treat to see them at such close quarters.

Sadly this bird with the odd coloured feathers is not well, it has a wound on it's neck which may have been punctured by a branch as it landed to feed.

While Kereru and Tui swoosh and soar about above us, down on the ground Weka and Pukeko roam throughout the camp. Here a Western Weka stretches and spreads it's wings as it soaks up the warm sunshine (I know how you feel mate!). I had to laugh the other night, I forgot to turn the water pump off and when I visited the little room at some unGodly hour the pump swung into action along with what seemed like the whole population of weka screeching out their alarm calls at the noise.

I have been surprised by the lack of chicks on the ground for both the weka and pukeko although I did manage to spy these two chicks with their parent hidden in some tussock. It's either a little too early or they are being kept out of harm's way- I've seen weka stalk and attach pukeko chicks and I know pukeko kill ducklings so they'd likely kill weka chicks too. 

And looked who else popped up- a regular visitor at Kaiteriteri- a male California Quail with his partner. I've only spotted the two birds although I've heard a few calling but there are nowhere near the numbers we saw at Kaiteri.

It's not only the humans who are whitebaiting in the estuary...

...this Kotuku/White Heron is a regular visitor snatching at the small fry swimming up the channels...

...that weave their way through the Jointed Wire Rush.

Along with a pukeko who was also grabbing at the whitebait swimming past in the clear water.

While walking around the edge of the estuary I disturbed a weka digging for and munching on tiny crabs. 

I'd noticed a track through the estuary when I was looking at the google map of the area so yesterday afternoon I went exploring. The 'track' was on an embankment with a fast flowing stream on one side and a swamp on the other and I had to fight my way through so much gorse it wasn't funny. It left the road back near the entrance to the park and reached right out into the estuary coming to an end not too far from the north end of the campground and just across the reeds from where we are parked. The deep stream and high tide stopped me from heading home this way. 

I was very excited to find some deer prints in the sand about three quarters of the way along and could see where they'd walked down to a bush and munched the ends off it. There was also a wide swathe of bent reeds through the swamp where I think they may have made a quick exit. 

But best of all I saw five highly secretive Fernbirds/Matata, one carrying nesting material. More like a mouse than a bird, Matata creep silently through the undergrowth very rarely making an appearance above. I heard them 'clicking' long before I spotted the first one, but then one made a dash across the sand from a bush on the embankment down into the reeds, looking very much like a mouse with a feathered tail. I sat quietly for about 20 minutes before this one made an appearance from out of a gorse bush. It soon flitted across and down into the reeds too.

 Totaranui, what a great place to bird watch!

A Golden Day in Golden Bay

Real-time

I still have another 2-3 blogs from our time at Pakawau to do but I thought I'd post this one now to let you know it'll be my last blog for a week or so- we're moving tomorrow to an area that has limited internet so it'll be a good opportunity for me to take a wee break.....providing the weather stays warm and sunny like it has done for the last two days.

We've been parked at the NZMCA Park at Port Tarakohe in Pohara, near Takaka, for the last two days. There was a POP here the last time we passed through, although we actually stayed at the Top10 Holiday Park back along the road. The park is overlooked by old Port Golden Bay cement silos from the long abandoned cement works. 

It's a great site overlooking the harbour and Golden Bay beyond. The only problem is it's very boggy underfoot because of all the rain we've had lately. There's a patch of gravel in the centre and that's where most of the arriving vans have been parking up. Not us! We don't mind a bit of mud (and a bit of space).

I said the only problem was the boggy ground but actually that isn't quite right. There's a short-term problem on the wharf opposite; trucks are arriving on a regular basis loaded to the gunwales with huge rocks which are then dumped in a pile on the wharf- they must be for a seawall somewhere. There's a massive crash and a huge thump as they up-end the trailers which gives you a hell of a fright when you're not expecting it. And then the bulldozer moves in; scraping, pushing and tumbling them into a row. 

The best bit is that they start at 6am and don't finish until 6pm! Though I can report that after a few hours of rumbles you suddenly don't hear them anymore....until they startle you awake again the next morning. It actually doesn't worry us too much, we've got used to so many different sounds while we've been on the road, nothing fazes us now. But I bet those on limited holiday time have silently cursed them.

ETA- a local FB friend has told me that the rocks are actually being barged across the Strait to Wellington and are for use on the new Transmission Gully motorway; a 2+ year project so the noise is going to around for awhile yet!

I walked to end of the breakwater last night to catch the sunset but it had been such a brilliant blue sky day that there was nothing to write home about. I'm not complaining though, it was so nice to see the sun, and to have a bit of heat in the day. And such a peaceful way to end the day.

I checked out the Little Blue Penguin nesting boxes hidden in amongst the rocks along the way; I wasn't wanting to disturb them by scrambling about the boulders. I didn't need to. I could smell the ones that were occupied. Poo what a pong!

Since I was already awake, courtesy of the rock dumping this morning, I walked back to the end of the breakwater again to see if the sunrise was any better and to watch the fishing boats leave for the day. This one's from the mussel farm just out in the bay.

Sunrise was nothing spectacular either but it was going to be another stunning day. I waited awhile watching the sky lighten as the sun rose, hidden behind the rocky outcrop at the back of the harbour. 

And then this afternoon I took a little tiki-tour up the road, I've taken photos along this stretch of coastline during our last visit but I'm always keen to revisit places and see them in different lights and seasons. This is Tata Beach- the last time I visited here it was well before dawn, I'd come to see the Spitting Shags.

Tata Beach from the top of the road with the Port Tarakohe breakwaters in the background.

And just over the hill from Tata is beautiful Wainui Bay and the gateway to the Abel Tasman National Park.  Can you see the two people exploring the sandflats. 

I headed back to camp stopping to take a photo of the 'hole in the rock' near the the harbour. And look who's taking centre stage, our happy little home 'Out There'. As a matter of interest, tomorrow, October 4th, marks our 4th year on the road, we've certainly found ourselves parked in some very interesting places. Here's the blog from that day- Shell Shocked.

And that's it for a few days, here's hoping for some good weather! See you soon.

Pakawau- The Home of the Shag

Real-time!!!

Yes, finally I am catching up. But it's been a double-edged sword.  It's not because I have been diligently working away at it (even though I have), it's because we have had so much rain that I've been able to fill in many days doing blogs and photos. Which also means we haven't been exploring as much as we usually would so I don't have too many blogs to catch up on.

We've spent the last three weeks at the beautiful beachside settlement of Pakawau in Golden Bay, at the top of the South Island; Pa= home, kawau= shag. Hence the 'home of the shag' in the title. Not that we've seen many shags (cormorants for my overseas readers), the village should be renamed Patōrea; home of the Oystercatchers, there are hundreds of them!

From Kaiteriteri we headed over the infamous Takaka Hill, winding our way all the way up and then zig-zagging all the way down into Golden Bay. It reminded me of the blog I did the last time we visited Golden Bay and the local tourist slogan- 'It's just a hill, get over it'. 

Just past Takaka we drove down a side road to have lunch at the historic Waitapu Wharf (1863) which was once a bustling commercial and passenger terminus for Golden Bay but now a deserted, slightly battered jetty and home to a few yachts and fishing boats. It was one of our least salubrious lunch stops (spot 'Out There' down there?).

The rain started just as we left the wharf and it hasn't really stopped since- well that's not quite right, but it's rained more than it's shined that's for sure. We were headed to the end of the road, on the far side of Golden Bay just below Farewell Spit,  to the Wharariki Holiday Park. We had a slight delay while we waited for a mob of recently shorn sheep to be returned to their paddock.

We spent about 5 weeks in Golden Bay a couple of years ago, staying mostly at Collingwood and Pohara. This time I wanted to stay near Wharariki Beach's Archway Islands so I could attempt to shoot the islands at sunrise and/or sunset.

Unfortunately after travelling down the narrow 8km gravel road in the pouring rain and driving into the camp, we found the few sites we would have fitted in were boggy and waterlogged.  After chatting with the caretaker, we decided it was probably best to head to another camp. With no turning bay I had to guide David out backwards, no mean feat with the rain now torrential and two excitable horses charging about, thundering up and down banks through the camp. They stopped galloping about to watch us as we left- perhaps they thought we were their horse float come to rescue them from the weather!

We headed back up the road; we had a CAP (cost apply parking) in mind, the Old School Cafe at Pakawau. We'd had a look at it on the way past on our last visit and I'd also heard lots of positive reports, including how great the cafe/restaurant food was.

With signs asking that we respect the lawn and keep driving to a minimum, and with the rain still torrential, we pulled carefully onto the grass in the corner...

...and that is where we stayed, fully hitched for the next 3 nights (max. stay allowed) while the heavens dumped bucket load after bucket load on us. These photos were taken on the last day... 

...just before we crossed over the road to the Pakawau Beach Camp, which is where we have been parked up for just over two weeks. We've had the camp to ourselves many nights and on others, there's just been one or two other vans in.

We've had the most amazing time overlooking this beautiful golden sand beach...

...watching the tides come and go and the weather chop and change just as regularly.

I love to park where there's an open view and where I can watch the world go by from the window...

...from locals walking their dogs, a seal pup arriving for a rest...

...gannets, terns and gulls sweeping back and forward along the breakers, diving for small fish in the shallow waters just outside the window...

...to the local trotter being exercised at low tide.

Pakawau Beach Camp is one of the old school, classic kiwi campgrounds; a bit rough around the edges with basic facilities (there is no dump station) but still perfectly adequate and with the most welcoming and friendly owners. We decided we could have left Kaiteriteri earlier and stayed here for some of the winter (they have weekly winter rates until Labour weekend)- we'll know for next time.

I've had a great time photographing the local birds on the beach and in camp. The air has been filled with bird song from dawn until dusk; the resident tuis are feeding (and courting) in the flowering trees and plants that surround the camp.

I've also managed to capture quite a number of sunrises...

...they're a small consolation for the wet weather than invariably sweeps in not long after the brilliant colours bleach out of the sky.

And of course we made good use of the Old School Cafe- well why wouldn't we, it was just across the road. I can report that the cafe has a great atmosphere and the food is indeed excellent- in order of enjoyment (no, not all on the same day); Seafood Chowder (lunch), Whitebait Fritters (dinner), Blue Cod & Chips (take-away) & Asian Pork Belly (dinner- last day, no food left in the cupboard. Well that's what I told David anyway).