A very busy week

It’s been a busy week. We left our Adele Island anchorage last Saturday and headed across Tasman Bay in very little wind to Nelson. We should have had good views of the mountains to the south but these were completely obscured by the smoke from the bushfires, which have enveloped Pigeon Valley, just south of Nelson.

We arrived into the marina around 1330 and headed off into the city (20 mins walk) to explore. Nelson really is a nice place, with lots of good food, craft beer and arts and crafts shops. We explored the shops, had a nice meal and sampled some very good craft beer at the Free House pub, which is in an old church. There were many beers on offer and it took considerable self-control to leave and not stay there all afternoon!

All tied up in Nelson Marina

Street dining, Nelson style

On Sunday we had lazy start and then headed into Nelson for more exploration. We visited a Sunday market full of bric-a-brac and books. There’s certainly plenty of recycling going on in Nelson. We watched one young lad buy a pan for gold panning, off to make his fortune no doubt. We then headed up to the cathedral, which was built in the 19^th century and sits on a hilltop looking back over the main street. The cathedral grounds are filled with some very impressive old trees, some of which are as old as the cathedral. Then we headed down to the museum to find out more about the history of Nelson and read some of the stories about previous inhabitants and also walked around an impressive exhibition on Permian monsters, the predecessors to the dinosaurs.

Nelson Cathedral

Back on board X-Pat, we had Mike and Karen (SV True Companions) and Fleur who is a local yachtswoman and member of the “Women who Sail” group, which Debi and Karen also belong to.  As is often the case, the wine and beer just slipped down and before we knew it Karen was throwing bubbly all over the boat as if we were doing a relaunch!

Feeling slightly subdued the next morning, Pat borrowed a bike from Mike and Debi hired one and we set off to, would you believe it, go wine tasting. Debi chose some distant winery and off we went along wonderful coastal cycle paths to the Seifried winery. Cycling along the side of the mudflats here gave a real appreciation of the wonderful estuarine habitat that exists here. In places it was flanked by some industrial development including a big wood processing factory and a recycling centre and yet the environment was pristine.

On yer bike!

Having sampled seven of Seifried’s best and discovered that they no longer did lunch we headed back towards Nelson feeling hungry, sore and a bit tipsy. We eventually got back to a country pub, which goes by the dubious name of “The Honest Lawyer”. Food and beer were both sampled and both good! We left to find our next stretch of the coastal cycle route was heading into a strong northerly wind, which slowed progress but we eventually arrived at our next stop, “The Boat Shed” for cocktails! Sitting out over the water and watching the yachts sail by we contemplated whether we would be able to walk the next day having cycled 52km. It was a quiet evening.

On Tuesday we hired a car with Mike and Karen and headed off to Collingwood, about two hours west of Nelson. We stopped at Te Waikoropupu Springs on the way. These springs discharge an amazing 14,000 litres of crystal clear water per second, making them the largest natural springs in the southern hemisphere. The flow rate apparently fluctuates twice daily with the tides, even though they are 50m above sea level. It was all we could do to stop Mike going for a swim.

The beautiful clear waters at Te Waikoropupu Springs

Once in Collingwood we checked into our motel and then did a quick trip to Wharariki Beach for some very windy sundowners. Thank you Fleur for the recommendation! This all took a bit longer than expected and it was 8pm before we wandered into a local restaurant called MAD which was all about sustainable living.  The décor and food were very interesting and, even though the place was supposed to have stopped serving, the very kind proprietor said they’d feed us.  It was a delicious meal.

A windy Wharariki Beach

We stayed overnight in Collingwood and the next morning, were up early for a tour of Farewell Spit. The natural sand spit is around 30km long and forms the northern shore of Golden Bay. We were driven in a 4WD bus mainly on the north shore of the spit, which comprises sand dunes exposed to the Tasman sea. The material that forms the spit is apparently eroded from the southern highlands and is swept up the west coast by the current. We headed out to the lighthouse, which we had used as reference on our approach into Tasman Bay a week ago. When it was built in 1897 the lighthouse was at the end of the spit, but the spit has now extended more than 8 km to the east of the lighthouse.

Farewell Spit Lighthouse

As the tide turned we headed back to the west and stopped to climb the sand dunes. This gave us a great opportunity to look south and see the very different environment on the south side of the spit. The very shallow nature of Golden Bay combined with a tidal range of over 4m means that when the tide goes out it really goes out. At times it can recede 7km and exposes around 80 square kilometres of mud flats. This is a fantastic feeding ground for wading birds including thousands of Godwits. However it also creates a trap and whale strandings are a common occurrence here.

80 square kilometres of feeding grounds for waders

Some mad people up a dune

Cape Farewell, the most northerly point on South Island

Back in Nelson, Thursday was spent doing provisioning and cleaning ready for our departure once again. We set off on Friday morning and headed north-east through French’s Pass between D’Urville Island and the mainland and anchored in Deep Bay for the night. The bay lived up to its name but we managed to anchor in about 17m of water in the northern corner of the bay.

Heading through French's Pass

Unfortunately a wind change occurred overnight and we were woken at 0400hrs by our anchor alarm. A quick check of the instruments indicated that were had dragged our anchor and were close to the shore. The depth now read 3.5m! We started the engine and headed back into the middle of the bay in the pitch dark and reset the anchor. We then sat for an hour and watched nervously as the boat swung around the bay in the gusts. When we swung back towards the beach and the depth again dropped to below 4m we decided it was time to leave so we picked our way out the bay between the marine farms and headed for Pelorus Sound in some very gusty (35kts) conditions.

We are now safely anchored in a very nice sheltered area called Ketu Bay and just chilling out. Dragging anchor was a first for us and we don’t want to repeat it!