KEY POINTS:
Some Golden Bay pleasures are best saved for the summer holiday season. Swimming comes to mind. And a winter visit with friends meant a lot of the cafes, galleries and eco-tours were shut down.
On the upside, we were pretty much sharing the place with the locals and the bird-life. We had one rainy day out of four with a bonus snow fight in brilliant sunshine at the top of the Takaka Hill. And the off-peak rate for five of us made it the cheapest bach holiday I can remember.
We spent a lot of time in our 1960s wood-panelled bach; eating, lounging in front of the cave-sized open fire and working our way through the bookshelf from Best NZ Fiction to What's that Shell?
Behind the sunny deck, a path dipped through trees, climbed a sand dune and tumbled us out on to Pakawau Beach; its gold sweep creased with driftwood and pine cones to keep our fire cranking after sundown.
To the north, Farewell Spit curved back on itself like a beckoning finger.
On our first expedition we took the inland road west, just before the Spit, parked and walked to Wharariki Beach.
It was like stumbling on a ruined empire. Giant rock fortresses reared above us, studded with caves, and sand rolled down to the ocean like smoke. We had the place to ourselves until a dozen oily-skinned seal pups turned up and started clowning around in the rock pools while a tough nanny seal kept an eye on proceedings.
Next morning the nice guy at the Golden Bay Information Centre in Takaka showed me a German magazine story on Wharariki Beach. "The Germans love Wharariki. They call it 'The Loneliness' - something like that," he said.
Of course it's a bit less lonely in summer. Takaka alone had more than 50,000 visitors last year - and that's just the ones who went into the information centre.
We followed Abel Tasman Drive north-east between limestone crags and blue water and stopped for a picnic under a big old rata where our navigator remembered spending the night in his Kombi van on a solo trip years ago.
These days "No Camping" and "For Sale" signs compete along the golden coast.
Around sunset we went walking through Grove Scenic Reserve; an overgrown maze of rocky outcrops where rata sprout like huge prehistoric birds hatched from limestone eggs. Sort of Jurassic Park meets Picnic at Hanging Rock.
It was rainy and overcast the next day when we visited the famous Te Waikoropupu Springs but the water seemed to be lit from inside. Gold-flecked bubbles rose from vents in the marble rock, piwakawaka flirted around the water's edge and raindrops slid across it like diamonds being tested for purity before they were absorbed.
On the way home to our toasty bach we stopped in Collingwood. Everyone seemed to be indoors but the little museum, housed in the 1910 council office, lit up like magic when we ducked in out of the rain.
Alongside old mining and farming exhibits was a booklet on the exploits of "lady cyclist" Nita Rosslyn, whose 1927-1940 world cycle tour included a stint in Collingwood.
A preference for wearing red and keeping her bike in her bedroom "caused speculation she was a man or a spy but there was no proof". Also on display was a small Bible, a lover's gift to local Private James McKenna, torn by the bullet that killed him three days before World War I ended.
The sun came back for our last day. After brekkie on the deck, we headed up the road and across farmland to Fossil Point at the start of Farewell Spit.
You'd think by now we would have been sick of gold beaches fringed with nikau and flax. We were too early for godwit-spotting but the mudflats were busy with black swans, gulls and wading birds.
Four hours later we made it back to the car without seeing another person.
A Golden Bay winter has pleasures all of its own.
- Detours, HoS
