Position 40 40.497S  172 53.003E

You gotta love those names.  Spent a great night in the Puponga campsite.  Up for sale no no-one there except us, a car and the caretakers.  Lovely and clean with FLUSHING toilets. Followed by a night in Pohara with FLUSHING toilets and clean bug free showers.  There used to be a coal (and gold) mine in this area but it stopped at turn of century.  The coal seams kept getting thinner and thinner so the amount of rock they had to crush became prohibitive.  Anyway this is remains of wharf onto which the coal clippers used to come. Presumably the rock debris around the wharf came from the mine workings.  We set off to do a walk up a small mountain where you could get great views of Farewell Spit.  Unfortunately low cloud cover so it was drizzling buckets when we got to the car park.  Waste of a morning as it took a couple of hours to get there.  This is one of the views on the way to the hill, whose name I cannot remember.

Back on the road to Pohara we stopped off at the Mussel Inn for a pint.  They take the phone away from you here.  This is supposed to be a meet and greet the locals pub.  It was full of tourists waiting … well not full, there were 8 of us.

Waikoropupu Springs, a sacred Maori site.  Guess what most of it was closed until December.  According to a sign, quartz sand is ‘eternally tossed up half a meter from a vent in the centre of this pool’.  Mmmm.  Good job it wasn’t a long walk.  Apparently about 14,00 l flows per second, but then the spouting sand is supposed to reach 0.5m.  There is no doubt, however, that it is a spring or series of springs.

Went to a ‘Catch your own salmon’ farm. 

Paul did see an eel and some chickens.

Beautiful piece of coastline here.  This is just down from the campsite.

Pohara used to have a cement works so there is a big harbour.  The water is so clear now, spotted these bait balls.

In the inner harbour is now a marina, you can just make out the cement works in the background, to the right of the limestone bluff in the middle of the picture.  Boats anchored in the out harbour.

An unusual coffee shop, purportedly once owned by Jacques Cousteau.  Closed until December.