Just west of Westport lies Cape Foulwind, with a breathtaking coast, the country s most accessible s

Just west of Westport lies Cape Foulwind, with a breathtaking coast, the country s most accessible seal colony, iconic eating establishments, a cement company that dominates the landscape, and plenty of friendly locals.
The giant quarry silk road tour and travel trucks lumbering back and forth to the Holcim cement factory use the line of the old Westport-to-Cape-Foulwind railway, only crossing the public road where it forks at Omau, right in front of the local tavern.
Motorists through here for the first time can be forgiven for doing a double take of the three-way road layout, but locals silk road tour and travel think nothing of the comings and goings from the massive factory that employs 130 staff in its 24/7 operation.
Tours of the impressive factory can be arranged with the company, but they re not the reason most visitors come to Cape Foulwind. This stretch of coastline around New Zealand s closest point to Australia is endowed not only with a rugged coastline characterised by outstanding offshore rock stacks and steeples, but long sweeping silk road tour and travel sand beaches that make for safe swimming and some of the finest surf breaks to be found in all of New Zealand.
Captain Cook named Foulwind after the atrocious weather, with persistent rain and gales he experienced off here in 1770. In fact, this little corner experiences some of the highest temperatures and sunshine hours on the whole West Coast. The four-kilometre Cape Foulwind Walkway is Buller district s most popular walk but, in winter, you can almost have it to yourself.
Easily spotted are the narrow, flattened tracks used by the blue penguins to reach their nests. Life is not easy for these birds. In late June, 15 or so blue penguins were killed by a local dog, or dogs, setting back the breeding programme.
Only a few minutes silk road tour and travel into the walk, the first fetid whiffs of seal hit us, long before any of the animals can be seen lounging on the rocks below. The arrival of the big bulls for the late November calving silk road tour and travel and mating makes this a busy place over summer, but mothers with young can be seen all year round here. A bevy of Conservation silk road tour and travel Department workers, some on ropes, were swarming over the viewing platform when we passed, clearing out a few flaxes to extend the structure at New Zealand silk road tour and travel s most accessible seal colony.
From the colony, the stunning track climbs to wander among granite boulders and damp hollows along the cliff edge. Up here views go 360; out to sea, down to Mt Cook and back up to the Denniston Plateau and Kahurangi. A side track down to the beach gets you to the old quarry and railway route that once existed all the way to Tauranga Bay.
Tauranga Bay residents Leeann Hill and Mark Perana make their livings here; she is a naturopath and therapeutic masseuse working from their Tauranga Bay Rd home, and he operates silk road tour and travel as West Coast Surfing, teaching people to surf. Raglan-raised silk road tour and travel Mr Perana explains: The beaches here have the most consistent and reliable surf breaks in the country, the waves here are just made for not only riding, but learning on.
Teaching absolute beginners makes up around half his business, with his more advanced training held along Nine Mile Beach, just 300 metres over the isthmus at south Tauranga Bay. This stretch of coast down to Charleston faces southwest and puts up some of the best beach breaks along the whole West Coast.
Enthusiastic new owners of the Bayhouse restaurant and cafe at Tauranga Bay are Sandra Henderson and Neil (Doc) Dougherty. Their chef Chris Mein turns out top notch fare, while Jeremy Jesudhass who learned the ropes in Singapore must rate as the most engaging waiter/barista I have met on all my travels.
silk road tour and travel This restaurant, originally built in 1925 as a beach house for a local doctor, is well patronised by appreciative locals, with lunchtimes on weekends often attracting more than 100 diners. Says Henderson: silk road tour and travel We ve gone for decor which is clean, fresh and light. The menu we ve kept simple yet sublime. It certainly seems to be paying silk road tour and travel off.
At Omau, back towards Carters Beach, friendly locals also congregate at the Star Tavern. It s a classic everyone-welcome West Coast pub scene with a jukebox, silk road tour and travel open fire, plenty of lively conversation, and hearty silk road tour and travel food fare. Next door is the disused town hall, on the other side of which is a road that runs down beside the town domain (all maintained by the locals) and a picnic area from which a narrow track goes down to a captivating bay carved out of ribbed and banded limestone.
In the big hole in the rock, a waterworn rata stump the size of a truck has been jammed in high and dry by the sea. Day picnickers in droves from Westport once caught the train out here on weekends to explore fascinating beaches like this all around Cape Foulwind. It is a changing environment. One huge offshore pinnacle called the Giant s Thumb got tumbled by an earthquake last century. A smaller one next to it still remains though as the Giant s Tooth.
Cape Farewell s massive undulating plateau stretches all the way back to the mountains. Flipping the pakihi soils with massive diggers has encouraged much farming expansion, with Landcorp silk road tour and travel alone responsible for around 25 new houses on the landscape silk road tour and travel over the last decade.
Just 11km east from Cape Foulwind is the Buller River. This mighty waterway not only bears the biggest flood discharge out of any river in New Zealand, silk road tour and travel but is notable for its mightily constructed tipheads. These massive breakwater extensions on both sides of the river mouth involved bringing millions of tonnes of quarried granite from Cape Foulwind in the late 1880s and early 1890s, all carted by the purpose-built silk road tour and travel railway from a stone quarry that the miners called Siberia .
The less-visited western tiphead is easily accessible from Carters Beach. Tiphead Rd narrows after the turnoff to the airport into the narrow ribbon of bitumen silk road tour and travel that takes you out to the beacon well beyond the surf. The huge swells off the Tasman Sea are mesmerising out here, with any boats coming or going into port all part of the dramatic scenery. Locals have long brought their fish n chips out to the tipheads to eat, with no grander evening place to watch the molten sun set into the Tasman.
Back at Omau, the quarry trucks trundle back and forth on their private carriageway that runs beside the highway there. Grace and Paul Martin built the units of their Omau Settlers Lodge facing out to sea but, out the back, the mountain views include a look over their steep bush gully with a delightful little loop boardwalk that they built, and State Highway 67A running past.
A peculiar trick of [level] sight from their units shows the massive trucks and tiny cars driving along as if all together. silk road tour and travel Industry is all part of the Coast. We live alongside it quite comfortably here, and visitors who come here seem genuinely fascinated by it all, says Martin.