Golden Bay is a lovely area to explore. There are plenty of beaches to check out, cafes to fill your tummy and tracks to encounter the bush.

Wharariki beach - a real 'north west coast beach'

Joe, Mike, Charlie and I stayed the night at the Wharariki beach car park (marked no overnight camping - naughty). During sun set we made it down to the beautiful beach, famous for its sand dunes, rock formations and strangely looking islands.
Lots of roots to cross along the Kaituna track
We were a large group who set off to do the Kaituna Track, which begins about 15 km from Collingwood. We misjudged how long it would take to shuttle cars between the start and end points and it took almost 2 hrs to get going. Julian, Jana and I spent the time waiting at the Naked Possum pub. It was very tempting to try some of their beer, but I wasn't convinced that it was what my body needed before a 20 km run.
Jana, who wasn't up for a long run this hot day, decided to walk from the West Haven side to meet us at Knuckle Hill.

The track at the south end starts off like a wide track suitable for wheelchair. After a few kilometers the track changed character. Michael Smithson, who fell off the track on the easy part, got nervous about continuing after seeing this sign:

We were now in for the rootie section with lots of mud. DOC recommended sturdy footwear. Joe, who likes challenges, took his jandals for much of the way. It was not exactly what DOC recommended.
At this point, I was panicking...Where is the track???
Mike, the elk is charging down the roots with grace.
The track offered some great New Zealand native forest. Running through it I often started singing 'It's like a jungle sometime it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.'
It was a scorcher and I was sweating like a dog! Hrm, I don't actually think dogs are famous for sweating lots, but you know the deal.
We all arrived to Knuckle Hill at different times, so it didn't turn into a very social run after all. Jana, Julian, Mark and Sylvia had already been to the top were heading down towards the vehicles when we approached the top.

This is the view from Knuckle Hill towards Westhaven Inlet: Joe (Monkey man), me, OB and Elk man - we all made it to Knuckle Hill
Charlie's beautiful photo of an umbrella fern The Kaituna Track was lots of fun as a running mission. We briefly discussed how it would be as a race. A month afterwards, I ended up winning a spot price which gave me a free entry to run the track as a race: The Escape from Tane's forest.

I will therefore enjoy the trail once again in end of March with an event dinner with beer at the Naked Possum Pub. I can't wait!

After the Kaituna missions, most of the gang went back to Takaka for some climbing. Joe, Mike and Charlie and I were keen to linger in the areas for a bit longer.

We had heard about a beach where free campers were welcome under these conditions (I love the bluntness of point 3: No Spade - No Stay - Bury your Shit!): We were pretty smelly after our run and had a refreshing cleansing session in the Paturau River (close to the dairy cows -ouch!). The last spruce up was achieved thanks to baby wipes. Camping in a van only works as long as you are willing to be a bit pragmatic. Room with a sea view Nothing beats a good West Coast sun set and having some great tunes in the van with some beers and chips

Drying our washing in the van:
Exploring the beach before heading back southwards
Melodramatic Joe
The queen on her throne

Mt Fishtail in the Richmond Range

Charlie and I realised we had so far spent almost no time to ourselves during the whole xmas break. Time to shake off Joe and Mike...

We drove down to the Richmond range which is just west of Blenheim. It's an amazing beech forest area with huge potential for mountain biking. In our search for suitable mtb trails, we tramped up to the 4 person hut below Mt Fishtail.

This is me checking out if a bike would fit between the trees. This forest was surprisingly full of bird life. We spotted tui, bellbird, plenty of riflemen (NZ's smallest bird), parakeets and even three Kaka (a type of parrot, which is not that common to see). We had a very windy night in the little hut with a German couple who hardly slept at all. The next day was gorgeous and we climbed the hill before going downhill back to the van for a Blenheim visit at Libby and Ken's. Looking down the Waiau valley towards Blenheim. The trail from the hut was VERY SUITED for mountain biking, so we even came back the following day. We spent 2-3 hr carrying the bikes up to enjoy some very steep downhill biking. Some parts had far too much leaf litter which made it quite impossible to break. Overall, the track was way more rideable than I expected. I only came off a couple of times, mostly from cheer exhaustion from tensing up too much. This was the end of a very successful Christmas holiday. It ended up feeling even longer than 2.5 weeks, which is surely a great sign.