Comments on: Farewell Spit

By: dad

dad — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:31:23 +0000

ha! Nice photoediting job! I’m a big rookie at it. My favorite sand spit is the Homer spit, in Homer AK. ;^) Wow, 26 km long is a big spit. Do people hike way out on it? Sounds tiring!

By: josh

josh — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 06:45:43 +0000

We saw whales in Moorea (French Polynesia) and we have seen dolphins a few places. Most recently on the Interislander ferry.

By: Clara

Clara — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 02:54:00 +0000

Tricky! Isn’t photo editing fun. You can make your dreams come true–in pictures. I can’t remember if you’ve seen any dolphins or whales on this trip.

By: josh

josh — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 02:19:39 +0000

Here is what it might look like on a nicer day:

By: josh

josh — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 01:38:57 +0000

Wow Clara, you were commenting as soon as I got the post up. You are on top of things. I am glad you have a book with some better photos of the spit than mine. It is supposed to be a beautiful area when you can see it.

I am thinking I should put up a new post soon, so this photo doesn’t stay on the main page for long.

By: Clara

Clara — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:20:34 +0000

I’d never heard of sand spits before, so did a little research to learn about them. It’s nice you could capture this digitally and know what it was. I enjoyed the Harwood’s Hole photos and information, too. I’ve located information about the hole, Golden Bay, Takaka and Farewell Spit in my NZ travel book. It even has a picture of tourists climbing the sand dunes at Farewell Spit.

By: josh

josh — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:10:18 +0000

As we headed north to Golden Bay, it started to rain. We stayed in Takaka, and went out to see Farewell Spit, a 26km long sand spit at the very north of the South Island.

As you can see in the photo, the weather was really bad. If you squint and turn your head sideways you can make out the sand spit on the horizon, going out to the right from the trees. Maybe one day I will get back there and get a better photograph, and spend some time in the sun.

Golden Bay is where Abel Tasman landed in 1642, as the first European to land in New Zealand. He had a bad encounter with local Maori and named the area Murderers Bay. James cook came back in 1769, and apparently had a better time of it, renaming the area Golden Bay.