Motueka

Motueka accommodation puts you in an orchard town on Tasman Bay, where the harvest sets the pace from late summer into autumn. Packhouses run late, seasonal pickers fill the cafés along High Street, and hops grow on the flats inland.

Holiday homes and cottages here reach Marahau and the Kahurangi ranges easily enough, though plenty of guests never get past the estuary. The sandspit at the river mouth draws shorebirds at low tide and kitesurfers whenever the afternoon breeze comes through. Cold, clear water rises out of the ground at the Riwaka Resurgence just north.