The second day we had in Golden Bay, we planned to go to Pupu Springs (short for Te Waikoropupu Springs), and then find Labyrinth Rocks before deciding what to do with the rest of the day. Well, the first part of the day went according to plan! We arrived at Pupu Springs and walked around admiring the beautiful forest and water.
Mr. Inventor, Mr. Sweetie, and Mr. Diligence waiting for the rest of us to get ready to go.
The water is so clear, with almost a greenish quality. The river flowing out of the springs is as beautiful as the springs themselves!
The trail through the springs area goes through a lot of native bush. It was cold; we saw frost right beside the trail; but so beautiful!
This is the biggest spring. You can see the water coming up under the surface.
This was off to the side of the main spring. We saw small springs welling up out of the bottom, with sand dancing on top of the stream of water.
The rock walls along the trail in some places are left over from gold mining in the late 1800s. This is Mr. Inventor and Mr. Diligence.
After taking our time walking around the springs area, we all got into the van and Gayle turned the key. Nothing. He tried again. Nothing. The battery was totally flat. We had bought a new battery five days before, because we were having problems with the battery. Apparently, our problem was worse than an old battery! We quickly asked some other tourists, who Gayle had been talking to, to give us a jump, and instead of going to another attraction we went to Takaka to find a garage. The mechanics were out for lunch, so we went on to find a beach where most of us could spend the afternoon while Gayle got the van looked at. I’ll describe the afternoon in another post.
It turned out that the alternator was doing nothing—we were given a bad one. When Gayle came to pick us up, after finding the problem and getting the battery charged, we finally made it to the second place we had talked about going that day—Labyrinth Rocks. This is a five-acre area of rock canyons and native bush. 
This was called the Alligator.
As it got darker, and we hurried through the maze, we were very glad to have a map! This was truly a labyrinth.
We all agreed that we’d like to go back sometime when we could spend some time there. Because of the van trouble we only had 15 or 20 minutes before it got too dark.
I love Takaka area! Golden Bay is a beautiful place. Where were you staying? Did you visit Patons’s Rock?
We stayed at the Collingwood Motor Camp (I showed some pictures a few posts back). I highly recommend going there, especially during the winter, when you have a big family! They gave us a really good deal on a house.
And no, we didn’t visit Paton’s Rock. I’ll have to look that up for next time.