Michele and I chose to make the most of the weekend with Brian in Golden Bay by travelling over the hill on Friday night. After nice fish ‘n’ chips in Takaka, we arrived at Brian’s at a reasonable time to formulate a plan for the weekend.

We rose early in order to spend time on Wharariki Beach before high tide at 9:30am. There was no one else there. After exploring some of the rocks at the eastern end of the beach, we then had a neat experience watching 5–6 seal pups playing in a small pool. They put on quite a show and came quite close.

From there, we dodged a few sea surges around the rocks before climbing up to do a circuit on the Green Hills loop track. It was lambing season so it was quite a privilege to be there that time. We came across a cast sheep, fed it some grass and helped it move.

In the afternoon we went to Cape Farewell and on to the Pillar Point lighthouse. It was at this point that Brian volunteered to return to the van and move it to the base of Farewell Spit. This meant that Michele and I could continue along the coast on the Puponga Hilltop Track.

I persuaded Brian to take a shortcut off track to the van. It was fun watching Brian bush crash through two-metre-high scratchy scrub! He was, however, quite skilled and only received a few scratches. Who’d want to be boring and follow the track anyway? Michele and I exited through grassy paddocks, once again grateful that the farmer allowed people across during lambing season.

That night we enjoyed roast dinner. The weather closed in overnight, so Sunday morning was a leisurely start with a server of Brian’s famous omelettes, with home-grown eggs, of course.

We visited Wainui Falls which were in full flow so this involved wearing one’s raincoat. It was a lovely walk to and from the falls.

Our second stop was Rawhiti Cave, ‘nationally significant as it has possibly the most diverse and extensive entrance and twilight-zone flora of any cave in New Zealand’ and has ‘stalactites on the cave ceiling growing outwards towards the sunlight’. Due to the previous rain, the track was greasy and required some care while returning to the car.

Wholemeal Café was closed but we found another café in town before returning to Brian’s to pack up and return to Nelson. Thank you, Brian, for showing us around your back yard.

We were: Michele Cunningham and Pete Phipps (scribe) guided by local Brian Renwick.