Of Caves, Car Rides and Cherries

After hiking for the past five days continuously it seems a bit odd to be sitting in a car. But for once the kids were not whinging about a long car ride. Gee, their legs must be tired!

We're driving from Picton to Golden Bay, at the North West end of the South Island. It's about five hours by car, but we've got all day. First stop is to pick up some fresh cherries from one of the local cherry orchards. There is just nothing in this culinary world like South Island Cherries right from the tree.

It's quite a windy day and I am glad we are not going along the ridge top today. As it is we spend the morning driving through the famous vineyards which surround Blenheim saying hello to all the grape vines that produce some of our favorite wines.

And then it's onwards, through Nelson to Motueka where we stopped for a quick picnic. It was good to stretch our legs before heading up, up, up the winding road that goes over the marble mountain of Takaka and into Golden Bay. I think the isolation of only having one road in and out is one of the things that makes Golden Bay so special. Well, that and the fact that it is just so beautiful!

At the top of the Takaka Hills is a very special place that we promised the kids we would stop at.

Ngarua Caves. When I visited them in 2005 I thought they were absolutely old school and totally worth the stop! Let's hope they live up to the billing.

Tours led by an old farmer through the limestone caves are every hour, on the hour, during summer and so we pay our fee and get our hard hats. The farmer unlocks the padlock and in we go entering a subterranean network of limestone tunnels, huge stalagmites and dripping stalactites. Being in a cave always makes me feel as though I am invading the earth, and that somehow I am not meant to be here in this magical world. The curvature of the stalactites that hang down in graceful collums have been slowly growing here for thousands of years. How young does it make a mere human like myself feel to witness the slower timescale of geology?

Geological Splendor

And the cave is a record book of New Zealand's animal life too. The cave network has many vents that go up to the surface and which many animals have fallen down over the years, trapped to die of their injuries or starvation. There are bones from kiwi birds and even the extinct Moa bird.

Out we climb

Look mum, we found a Moa!

While looking at the femur of the huge legs one unfortunate Moa it gives you the sense of how tall they really were. To imagine that New Zealand once had these enormous birds walking on it not more than six hundred years ago boggles the mind. Geology may take it's time, but extinction can happen in a mere blink of an eye.

The kids thought the cave was great, and I am glad that it hasn't changed much in the nine years since I was last here. It seems like so much of the world has moved on that revisiting a place that has remained intact sends a little wave of peace down my spine. We spend a little time exploring the Karst landscape around the caves (where scenes from the hobbit were recently filmed) before heading down, down, down off the mountain into Golden Bay itself and our Top Ten Campground.

Walking down from the cave through the spectacular Middle Earth scenery and Tasman Bay.

These campgrounds are one of my favorite things about traveling around New Zealand with the kids. From what I've seen you always get a good location, you get good quality and the kids are always well looked after.

One like to cook, the other doesn't. Can you tell?

Tonight there is a kids movie set up for after dinner so the kids swap their after dinner dish duties for the dinner making itself so they won't miss out. And after all the dishes are dried Randall and I have the chance to walk hand in hand along the beach and enjoy the long, long evening.

Golden Bay Selfie!

Appreciate what you have, love your family, enjoy nature. Life is good.