Golden Bay

Golden Bay is at the North West corner of the South Island. It lies at the edge of the junction between the Tasman Sea and Cook Strait. It stretches for 45 kilometres from the long sand spit of Farewell Spit in the north to Separation Point in Abel Tasman National Park.

As we mentioned in the Abel Tasman post, it was originally named Murderers Bay in 1642 after Abel Tasman lost several of his crew to Maoris killing them. Captain Cook renamed it Golden Bay when he arrived in 1769. It is largely unpopulated and the section of the beach we went to near Collingwood only had another few people on this huge stretch of beach. It was a great place to stay a while and relax again in the roasting hot sun and look out onto the clear blue sea.