Hellooooo Nature Girl!
I booked a tour to Abel Tasman National Park. Agenda for the day: A full day of Hiking and Sea Kayaking. The park is on the north west corner of the south island which is actually further north than Wellington, the southern tip of the north island - a hard concept to grasp unless looking at a map. From Nelson, in order to get to the park, we were bused to Marahau which is the closest town to the National Park. There are no roads into the park. You must access the park via boat or if you are super rich, via helicopter. Our water taxi dropped us off at Barks Bay and we hiked 6.4 km to Torrent Bay. It was an up and down trek, but not too strenuous (I can still hang a bit...). Along the way, people were stopped to admire a baby bell bird or Korimaku in Maori. He/She was calling to its mom. The birds have a two tone whistle which sounds like bells. It was very cute. He/She did not want to fly out of the tree and momma bird was trying to coax him/her out. Upon arrival at Torrent Bay, we had some time to hang out and eat lunch and admire the area. One thing that was really obvious was the tide level. Initially, our water taxi had to be "tracktored" into the water. The tide was so low, a tractor backed the boat into the water. Virtually all the boats around the bays were sitting on land and later in the day, when the tide came up, they were in water again. The people with boats have to plan their day around the tide movement.
From Torrent Bay, we boarded another water taxi and arrived at Watering Cove. Here we had an "afternoon tea" break and received a Kayaking lesson. And we were off! My Kayak partner was Alec from Germany. He was on holiday with his mom and dad. He had spent a few months in Australia and now they were together for holiday in New Zealand. He was such a nice kid. We paddled and paddled, 8 km. It was beautiful and pretty smooth going. We spotted a sting ray in the water right under our Kayak - pretty cool. Toward the end, my hands were pretty tired, not so much my arms, but my hands. I think I was holding the paddle too tight. I'm glad Alec was young and strong, he pretty much paddled us back the last km. It was another successful adventure for Nature Girl! I would recommend MSK (Marahau Sea Kayaks) for kayaking in Abel Tasman - knowledgeable guides and well planned trip!
It was back to the hot, stuffy, overcrowded room in the Hostel - Nature Girl needed a shower desperately! The only good thing about my room in Nelson was that I met my new friend Anja!
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