Golden bay cafe

There are two cafes that I'd recommend if you are travelling in Golden Bay.

Paddlecrab Cafe - with stunning views of Farewell Spit

The Paddle Crad café is the visitors information centre and café. From here, you can see the great view over the well-known Farewell Spit's scenic natural wonderlands.

They have also a large panoramic windows allow for both indoor and ourdoor dining.

As you can see here, the restaurant is high on the hill and offers stunning view as far as the eyes can see till the Farewell Spit disappearing into the distance.

Isn't is an essential of enjoyment, having coffee and enjoying the stunning views.

Old School Cafe - with fascinating historical experiences.


The Old School Café, that transformed from old school, now is a popular restaurant.

The café itself is set in the old school buildings with ample dining room both inside and outside within the ambient setting.

The café offers great good in an enjoyable relaxing atmosphere with fascinating historical experiences.

I'd said this place is absolutely fantastic! Simple menu yet offered delicious food, old school yet has historical experiences.

 

Golden Bay (Cape Farewell & Wharariki Beach), South Island

After Pupu Spring, we overnight at cabin camp before we heading to Golden Bay the next day to explore the wild and rugged South Island's most northern point, the wind sculpted cliffs at Cape Farewell and the truly golden beaches of Wharariki Beach. It's worthwhile spent a night here to enjoy the area, affordable cabins with well equipped kitchen and TV room.

The next morning when we awoke, we found ourselves in a beautiful scenery, people fishing on the rock. Can't believe that i had made this beautiful scenery as a photo, thought it can only be seen in movie. What a satisfaction!

The power of the nature making me enchanted myself with the spectacular sunrise. 

If you look at the map of the northern tip of Golden Bay, you can see the distinctive Kiwi shape curving round Golden Bay from the Cape Farewell that curves away to the longest sand spit of New Zealand, Farewell Spit is the kiwi's beak.

First station - The wind sculpted cliffs, Cape Farewell

A few minutes short walk uphill from the car park takes you to Cape Farewell.

An impressive cliff top lookout with the unbounded, expansive sea and coastal views. There's a definite feeling of being at the hilltop and the wind sculpted cliffs. 

Yes, we're now at the South Island's most northern point. This photo is the best evidence to expressed our excitement.

Second station - The truly golden beaches, Wharariki Beach


There are signboards directing the way from walk uphill along the coastline toward Wharariki Beach.

In order to get to the beach, we need to get through sheep paddocks and farmland up the hill. Despite the long walk, we enjoyed the beautiful scenery and magnificent views all the way! As when we are walking in a line at rugged mountain we joked happily while viewing and enjoying for the beautiful scenery.

Approximately half an hour after strolled through the sheep paddocks and farmland, the incredible coastal landscape was infront of us. I can only described wharariki beach as wondrous coastal landscape, with the enormous sand beaches, massive sand dunes and wild and thunderous waves. It's windy here, as you can see, I almost stir up by the strong wind.

That's really a scenic delight with the beautiful and fine sand beaches, a truly golden beaches.

I would said this is a photographer's paradise, because we've taken thousands of photos here.

To be continued....

Te Waikoropupu Springs ('Pupu Springs')

The Te Waikoropupu Springs ('Pupu Springs') is our second sightseeing stop after Salmon Farm. Pupu Spring, just a few minutes drive from the Salmon Farm that located at the centre of Takaka and Collingwood, Golden Bay Region on New Zealand's South Island. Simply called Pupu Springs, the springs are known for the clarity of the water and the volume of water discharged. To Maori people, the Pupu Springs is a  treasure and a place held in high cultural and spiritual regard.

Reputedly the world's clearest freshwater springs and the only place where there is known to be water of greater clarity is under the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. 

The freshwater springs have an enormous energy, as you can see the incredibly pure spring water gurgling among the pure and natural-looking landscape. The freshwater springs is indeed remarkably crystal clear, I can see myself in the water.

As you can see the tranquil part of the pool, showing a spectacular variety of aquatic weeds to enact an underwater wonderland. Here you will be able to take million photos as what we did in a place of purity and beauty.

Here's the viewing platform, from here the pool looks deceptively shallow, but is not. Because it discharge an average of 14,000 liters of water a second, is the largest freshwater springs in New Zealand. 

Not forgotten, group photo for every single place that we have visited, as usual. Asian style, peace!

Salmon fishing @ Anatoki Salmon Fish Farm

From Motueka to the Takaka where Anatoki Salmon Fish Farm is located, the journey took approximately 60km, an hour because the road is zigzagged. It is always a thrilling experience to go fishing especially in New Zealand that blessed with abundance of seafood.

Anatoki Salmon is a small freshwater salmon farm specialising in a superior quality freshwater salmon product. It's also a great place for anglers and an affordable backpacker like us who love the trill of catching some fishes. 

It’s a great place to fish, relax and enjoy this unique experince, you don’t necessarily need fishing experience but to enjoy the atmosphere with the beautiful surrounding.

The farm is bordered by beautiful native bush adjoining the Anatoki River and the Kahurangi National Park, providing a tranquil environment for fishing. 

The pristine water with aquarium-quality salmon were waiting for us and challenge our fishing skill.  It was really an exciting moment when we caught salmon alive.

In less than an hour, we caught 5 salmon.

It's free of charge for entry, fishing gear and cleaning preparation and you only pay for what you catch which is $19 per kilo or have it hot smoked for an extra of $12.50 per rack or made into sashimi for just $3.00 per fish. It's great value fro money, the salmon cant get much fresher when you have it in sashimi and tastes delicious once it has been smoked. It's even more excited when you get to eat what you catch. 

 It's really made our holiday and we haven't stoppes raving about fresh salmon after got home.

Annoying, yet cute apples

Despite the long hours of standing in the apple packhouse, I had a great time working there especially when I assigned to the "old folks zone", grating table. 

Grating table is the easiest job, simply sorting the rotten apple from the good ones and ensure that no rotten apple is sneak away from the grating table.

As the days went by, we got better and better at handling those apples, sparkling Pink Lady apples, beautiful Jazz, deep red Envy, shiny Granny Smiths but mostly funky Fujis, coming in different sizes.

When comes to Pink Lady apples packing day, everyone arrived dressed as pink as possible. The whole packhouse full with pink atmosphere, even the sky was pink.

Office lady became apple packer

The main purpose for working holiday is hoping to gain new friends, some work experience, and most importantly, some cash to burn for our travel. Our first seasonal job as an apple packer in McLean Packhouse for Enza Apple that located in the outer central Motueka. 

We work 5 days a week, from 7.30am to 5.00pm, with two 10 minutes break amusingly called "smoko" and 30 minutes lunch, and with 11.70NZD per hour after tax. To be an apple packer, it doesn't matter what qualification and background is, as long as your legs and back works!

The packhouse atmosphere felt warm and friendly at once. People coming to work in blue uniform seemed to have arrived from every continent. China, Japan, Taiwan, the usual Kiwis and mostly Malaysia! A real international melting-pot gathered to provide the best apples to the world.

It’s not an easy job, involving a lot of lifting, speeding and 9 hours of standing. The job consists in sorting out good apples from bad ones, placing the good apples on trays, turning them around so they are lined up and have their red side up, and all this, at the speed of lightning. 

I have spent my first two weeks at the the packing line (packing the fruit into boxes) then on the grading table (sorting the good from the bad fruit) for the last week.

The first day was a complete nightmare, I felt as if I were in hell, a place filled with apples, coming at you so fast that you got completely overwhelmed and ended up drowning beneath a sea of apples. My legs is killing me for a few days, but that after third week of work, I wouldn't feel any more pain probably my legs became numb. 

To be continued.......

Surviving at backpacker house

After a week in Christchurch, we had a long travel day from 7am to 4pm down to Motueka (where our apple pack house is) with total of 471km. 

Most of people will chose to stay at backpacker house (BBH) when backpacking because you’ll probably spend less on BBH than you would pay anywhere else. Happy Apple Backpackers is the BBH we have lived for 2 weeks in Motueka.

Nice garden they have and I'm sure it would be great in the summer but not winter!

Relax in the TV lounge to help you enjoy your free time. I particularly love the fireplace in TV lounge because it keeps me warm during the frosty night. TV lounge also the place where you’ll meet new people from all over the world. You are never really on your own there will always be someone outthere, but of course you'll be forced out of being shy as well.

Well equipped kitchen but with all sorts of regulation like well label all foods with name and room no. to prevent it to be stolen and to show that it isn't left over from guests who have moved on. If it isn't labelled and dated, they will throw it out because the fridges and freezers are being cleaned out twice weekly. Kitchen's peak hour is usually at 5pm where everyone is back from work, I'd said the kitchen is like a battlefield, you conquer the kitchen you win. 

The shared batheroom cleaniness is average and the restriction is worst. Because the showers is solar powered, so you'll need to press a button, then turn on the shower in order to have hot shower but there is a five minute limit on it's use and you'll need to wait for another 2 minutes to get another 5 minutes of hot water. Imagine yourself standing pause in the bathroom under zero degree Celsius for 2 minutes to wait for a hot shower. I found that's really ridiculous yet I can only say nothing in this world is free and you might not be comfortable with the consequences.

After 2 weeks staying with the same and different people here, I have to say staying here feels like living in a little home where everybody knows everybody and people that come and go. Although this place was by no means "clean" and tidy but I got very good vibes from the overall atmosphere. That could be due to the wonderful people who were  staying there at the time.

Unfortunately this has it’s cons as well. Having more people working and living or just staying for quite some time, make friends. However these friends will end up having to leave at a certain stage, continue their travels, visas run out… and you have to see a good friend go hoping you will someday meet them again. Of course you just earned yourself a place to visit when you will continue traveling which is always a good thing.

By the time I'm leaving the bbh I actually ask myself is there any reason for me to come back? The answer is absolutely yes but not during winter because I'd probably spend a little extra for a place with hot shower without limits first.