Golden Bay, golden sand.  Officially the bay spreads from its southern end at Separation Point in the Abel Tasman National Park to the northern end at Farewell Spit.  It’s that spit that protects it to the north, the country’s longest sandspit, stretching like the beak of a kiwi out from Puponga, the South Island’s northernmost settlement, into the Tasman Sea.  As much as you might think its name heralds from the gloriously golden sand beaches, it was gold finds in the goldfields at Aorere that gave rise to the name.