After seven months NZ we thought we’d had seen almost every inch of gravel road there is and now this: Unexplored land, directly in front of our door step! Just a two hours drive northwest via Golden Bay, lies the Whanganui Inlet. Actually, we count it a West Coast experience since all the untouched nature of Kahurangi is very much leaning towards west. Karamea isn’t that far away from Motueka at all (if we only had wings). … so we started in a quiet Saturday morning with a Takaka Hill crossing, covering breakfast at our second favorite bakery and heading for that Mangarakau home we booked for a night. On the way we took a detour to the Knuckle Hill Outlook, just a 500 m walk, we thought (before we discovered this was just the way to the parking lot and we had another 2 hours walk to do). But the view from that hill is amazing and worth the effort.
