Takaka Hill and the AMAZING Golden Bay

#caravaning #retireearlyandtravel #travel #goldenbay #dronefishing #fishingvideos After leaving Richmond in Nelson, we head over to Golden Bay, but to get to Golden Bay, you need to tackle the Takaka Hill. This is daunting for some, with many views saying how steep it is going up or coming down the other side. I can tell you from experience that although the Takaka Hill is long in length of climb, in my opinion it is nowhere as steep as the Arthurs Pass, which may be shorter in length of climb, but it makes up for it in its steepness. First port of call (pardon the pun) is Port Tarakohe NZMCA park, which is a lovely little camp right by the harbour. Although you have to sometimes put up with the noise of mussel barges coming in to unload their goods onto waiting trucks in the early morning, it sure makes up for it in its picturesque scenery. With the fishing not really happening at Port Tarakohe, we moved on to Pakawau Beach, and with some bad weather approaching, it was good to plug into power for a couple of days. The next morning turned out to be a glorious blue sky day, and Darren was itching to get some fishing in with his drone. First cast out at 200 metres resulted in a catch of 40 cm Gurnard (our favourite fish), which made very nice fish cakes for lunch. The next day, it was an afternoon trip out to Farewell Spit to capture some drone footage. There are still many other wonderful things to see and do over here like Te Waikoropupu Springs (Pupu springs for short) with its beautiful crystal clear water coming straight up from the earth below, it is well worth a stop in, plus there are tame eels you can feed and a Salmon farm if you want to catch dinner (maybe Shelly could have finally caught her Salmon) but these things will have to wait for our next trip.