Mapua Wharf

Mapua was a fruit port and later the site of a pesticide works whose contaminated land took years to clean up; the wharf itself has been redeveloped since the 2000s into a small food and craft precinct. The pieces are a smokehouse doing local fish, a brewery with a taproom, an ice cream maker, cafes, a fish and chip shop, galleries and craft studios, arranged along the water looking across the Waimea Estuary to Rabbit Island. A small foot ferry crosses to the island in summer, and the Great Taste Trail cycleway runs through, which means a steady flow of riders. Jumping off the wharf into the channel is a long-standing local summer habit, and the tide runs hard through it. The whole thing is compact - an hour or two - and it is busy enough in January that parking becomes the limiting factor.

Highlights

• The smokehouse - local fish smoked on site.
• The estuary - the Waimea and Rabbit Island across the channel.
• The craft studios - galleries and workshops along the wharf.
• The wharf jumping - the local summer habit, in a fast tidal channel.

When to go

November to April. Weekends and January are crowded and parking is tight. The foot ferry to Rabbit Island runs in summer only.

Good to know

Small - an hour or two covers it. Very busy in midsummer. The tidal current through the channel is strong; the wharf jumping is unsupervised.

Nearby

Rabbit Island is across the channel; Nelson is east and Motueka north-west.