We set off early in our fully charged electric Nissan Leaf, making everything high on energy at the day’s start, which was good looking back on its unanticipated finish.
The drive out to Puponga from Takaka is a scenic one though we didn’t stop along the way as we had a full day planned out at Farewell Spit and surrounds, the South Island’s northernmost point.
We arrived at Puponga and took the good minor road left out to Wharariki beach. It was so good to stretch on arrival and be greeted by a peacock and peahen parading in the car park!
Wharariki Beach
The narrow walking track out to the beach is about 20 mins and meanders along a narrow track through farmland and bush then opens out onto the sandy dune access.
Wharariki Beach is super cool geologically. It’s the most spectacular coastline in the region, with its caverns, islands, sand dunes and long stretch of beach.
Go at low tide for best access to the caves and rocky formations dotted along the coast there and if you choose, you can walk along Wharariki Beach returning to the car park via Green Hills Track.
Access to the beach is at the end of Wharariki Road. From the car park to the beach takes 20 minutes over farm paddocks and through a section of coastal forest.
On the day we went, low tide was at 7 am and we arrived around 10 am. It was still accessible for a long way to the left and that’s the way I’d recommend heading to explore.
We so enjoyed darting in and out of the caves, examining the stone and shell layered nature of the rock faces, and wading into the mini bays created among the rocks.
Mind your step as seal pups often head onto the beach to play in the shore pools. I think they do this mainly at high tide as the only ones we saw were perched on a rock stack just offshore and only one that had earlier crept into a cave barked at Samuel as he ran in to explore the large, dark expanse. He shot out!
They camouflage really well in the half-light if caves and sometimes even roll themselves in sand making them even harder to spot so tread carefully.
After a good frolic on the beach, exploration, and the boys playing with kelp as whips, we drove a short way back along the road and turned left for the road to Cape Farewell lookout. There’s a sign to clearly mark this.
Cape Farewell Lookout
From the car park, a short walk of about 300m through sheep farmland will bring you out on a clifftop that overlooks the beach and rock arches below. The viewing platform sits right on the cliff edge giving your unobstructed views out to sea. This is the northernmost point in the South Island.
A quick lunch break and then off to Triangle Flat…To get there you head from Puponga, across the bridge, and follow signs for towards the Triangle Flat car park.
Farewell Spit from Triangle Flat
The Farewell Spit & Puponga Farm covers a large geographical area. The spit itself is the longest sand spit in New Zealand and is approximately 30km long and extends out to the east, shifting with winds and currents. Whales and dolphins sometimes strand in the shallow waters of the spit.
The spit’s unique nature has secured it nature reserve status. Public access is reserved for the base, more easily accessed parts only – the long thin bit that juts out into the sea is accessible by guided tours only.
The Department of Conservation (DoC) lists a range of walking tracks here.
We bought the guide from the i-Site for $2.50 (or download the free PDF here) and it gives good background information about the area, especially historical and natural, but I think their website’s track info is more clear.
Here are the main walks from Triangle Flat car park:
Fossil Point
Track category: Walking track
Time: 30 min one way
Distance: 2 km
From the car park, walk across Triangle Flat to Ocean Beach through open farmland and coastal bush; turn left along the beach to Fossil Point.
Fossilised shells and worm casts can be found in blocks of mudstone fallen from the cliffs.
Seals can often be seen here playing in the water. For a longer walk, continue along Ocean Beach and then take the Spit Track back to the car park.
Spit Track Circuit
Track category: Walking track
Time: 1 hr 30 min
Distance: 6 km
The entrance to the Inner Beach from the car park is through an entrance in the fence (kissing gate); walk along the beach until you reach the 4WD Spit Track. Cross over the spit to Ocean Beach and return via Triangle Flat.
Spit Track Circuit via Farewell Spit
Track category: Walking track
Time: 3–4 hr
Distance: 12 km
Walk along Inner Beach 4 kilometres to a marked track crossing the spit to Ocean Beach. Return back down Ocean Beach to the 4WD Spit Track or continue down the beach to Triangle Flat Track for a slightly longer return trip.
Also, note!!!
*Quicksand Hazard in the public access area*
DoC say, ‘There is an intermittent issue with quicksand within the flat sand pans at the base of Farewell Spit. This hazard exists in the flat open sand areas within the dunes, not out on the beach. The beaches, marked tracks and roads are still safe for travel.’
Please note: We did not see any signs about this all day or read about it in the DoC brochure. The hazard is noted on the DoC web page about Farewell Spit however we never used that to plan our trip but more about that later…
Fossil Hunting
As we wanted to hunt for fossils, we had pre-decided to take the track across the paddocks and bush to Fossil Point. It’s well marked with orange triangular track markers all the way to Ocean beach.
Fossil Point is to the left a bit where several rockfalls have landed on the beach below. Fossilised shells and worm casts can be found in blocks of mudstone.
We fossicked among the rock stacks and boulders which have several shell layers embedded in them, all clearly visible at ground level.
Smaller rocks scattered on the ground beneath the cliff face often easily break apart and Daniel managed to find one with several shell fossils inside which was an exciting find!
The remainder of the afternoon was dedicated to walking back along the beach and taking either track 6 or 7 as indicated in the DOC’s guide to the Farewell Spit area.
On a sunny day like we had, it’s a brilliant stroll with the water glistening and small waves lapping at your feet on your left and the dunes meandering alongside on the right.
The orange circle on a pole in the dunes was easy to spot but it almost arrived too soon and, still being full of energy, we decided it must mark track 6 and so track 7 would be within our reach so we passed it by.
But a very long time later, the expected second orange marker hadn’t appeared, no matter our efforts to will it into sight. By now we’d eaten our afternoon snack and energy was beginning to wane, along with the daylight hours.
We continued but the dunes dropped further and further from the tide line and, ‘Are we there yet?’ began to echo around us.
We parents scanned ahead and right but no sign of an end or another expected orange marker, and the first one now long behind us.
It was at this point that we wrongly thought that cutting across the dunes from where we were would lead us to the track home.
We headed to the right across the sand and then mud, sinking in ankle-deep where it was very wet, making the going heavy.
And then, Samuel, who was enjoying running over the wet sand, causing some water to flow from it, disappeared to waist height in it causing me, his mother, now with sudden-onset coronary failure, to fly after him in a rescue attempt as he declared, ‘Stuck, I am!’
I too sunk in on reaching him.
Why is it that, once in a firm predicament, you so often realise that more forethought may have been useful?!
Visions of Bear Grylls flashed across my mind. He got out of quicksand.
How? How?!
I dragged Samuel to the edge where it was firmer. He scrambled forward.
He was safe.
He turned and declared, ‘Now you’re stuck!’
Love you son, but this was not fun.
It was actually terrifying!
All this time Neil thought we were playing and had watched from his new position atop the next dune with amusement!
I was not amused!
Anyway, once safely out of the mud, and with a few choice mother mutterings we continued to the bush line.
But there was no track or way through it: just dense scrub of the gorse variety, promising a scratchy exit it if we pursued that course.
And then we found footprints!
Aha! Others had trod this way and no doubt found their way back…surely following them could be our solution?
No. It, sadly, was not.
They, like us, were no doubt tired and fed up with the long route option, keen to return to the car park.
And they too had no real idea of how to get there.
(There are no signs out on the spit, only a round orange marker partway along the beach, indicating the 4WD track between the inside and outside beaches.)
The footprint tracks took us up dune and down. We trudged on.
Samuel and I with now wet, sand-laden pants, still in search of our elusive holy grail – Where is this second orange marker?!
The footprint theory was a fail and after traumatising ourselves in sinking mud, we focussed on the best option out – head back to the orange marker we’d seen earlier.
So back up the beach, we slugged, expecting that happy orange sign at any minute but so often disappointed.
Yet, at last, it came. With a whoop and shout, we happily followed its direction.
Oddly it led us back in the direction we had just come from but this time along a 4WD vehicle track through the bush running parallel to the beach.
We gladly obeyed its counter-intuitive-to-us way and landed up on what’s known as the inner beach.
Which way from here?
Right seems right. If this was where we should have come to, then the map would indicate the car park was indeed to the right further along the beach…
Let’s do this!
Our bone-weary, sand-logged feet took us on, up quite a different beach, one laden with shell and wood pieces, the tide out leaving the sand flats smattered with swans and spoonbills in the evening sun.
Apparently, if you visit in summer it’s packed with migratory birds and would no doubt be a birdwatcher’s heaven.
Neil led the party and so was the one we watched for a whoop or thumbs up indicating we’d found our way back. For the longest time it never came… and then, in the distance, came his cry of triumph as he fist-pumped the air and we knew we had found Triangle Flat again.
Oh the relief! Not sure we’ve ever been happier to get back to our car.
What an epic journey and according to a fitness device that laboured through it all with us, we covered 16.4kms that day together, the equivalent of 33 flights of stairs, which doesn’t sound like too many, but I assure you, it was long and far.
And our two boys of 8 and 10, along with their parents, were ecstatic to reach their transport home that day.
Being electric, we still had to recharge our car at Pakawau for an hour and a half to get back to Takaka, but that’s another story! I’m just glad the camp shop there still had hot pies for sale!
What an epic adventure. Thankfully a happy ending despite the unexpected extra length.
Have you got any close encounters or tips about Farewell Spit or the area to share?
Please pin an image below.
Thanks!
Meagan
Epic adventure by the sound of it.