I had lunch close to where you see that blue i near the top of the map (a really good "Pud" Thai) and walked clockwise all the way around the peninsula. It was supposed to take 3-4 hours, but it took me 5 or so. My knee is still bugging me so I took my time.. and I took lots of picture breaks anyway. The first hour or so of the walk isn't supposed to be that nice, but I found it pretty interesting anyway.. There's a plaque every once in a while with something interesting on it (history this, geology that), a park here and there, and a bunch of mountains all around you. Eventually you reach a seal colony. You are basically free to wander around the rocks, as long as you don't get 10m or closer to the seals.. You are also not allowed to touch or move them, which was all explained to me on a big billboard.. which I found amusing.. who's going to try to move a seal? How *would* you move a seal, anyway? The seal colony was cool, though. There was a seal relaxing fairly close to the car park and several more in the distance. I'm pretty sure I go closer than 10m - he didn't seem to care. I continued the walk by climbing up a cliff and continued along the walkway to 2 other seal colonies, as well as a bird colony of some sort (mating place, maybe?). It was a great walk overall - I took tons of pics. (The grand total so far: 5,250+)
The next day I was on a train again - with an hour stopover in Blenheim (pronounced Blenhem for some reason), then a bus to Nelson (pronounced Nelson), an hour layover there, and then Motueka, the closest place to Abel Tasman National Park that nakedbus.com let me book transportation to. As I said I had an hour to kill in Nelson - and the bus happened to drop us off right in front of the Nelson isite - so I walked in and I booked a bunch of stuff: 1. Bus to Kaiteriteri the next day, 2. A day-long sea kayaking trip in Abel Tasman National Park, 3. An aqua taxi excursion to Abel Tasman national park including a 3.5 hour walk, 4. hostel accomodation in both Motueka and Keiteriteri.. phew! That was a lot of stuff! The people working the isites are really good at what they do though. Even though I took a lazy 25 hour lunch while waiting for my bus (meaning I only had 35 minutes to book stuff), the girl helping me was able to book everything with 5 minutes to spare.. not to mention showing me all the brochures and giving me time to decide what I wanted to do. I wasn't even going to book anything there - I just wanted information.. but it turned out that the Motueka isite would have been closed by the time I got there - in my mind equaling a wasted day, so I went ahead and booked everything right there.
Anyway, onto the subject that this post was supposed to have been about in the first place: the sea kayaking trip through Abel Tasman National Park. First of all, Kaiteriteri has a really really nice beach. I found out about it months ago and planned to come here initially.. before altering my plans and scrapping the side-trip. Kaiteriteri is very close to Abel Tasman though, and I have been hearing such great things about it from other travellers, that I just HAD to come here.
The bus dropped me off at the beach at 8:30am and I was introduced to a Kiwi named Brett, who surprisingly sounded a lot like The flight of the conchord's Jermaine. He was our guide dude and was going to share a kayak with me (in the normal sort of way that two gentlemen might share a kayak). The only other kayak in the group was an English couple - a Royal Navy captain and his seemingly significant other. We were introduced to the gear, dressed for the occasion, and loaded onto an Aqua Taxi along with our kayaks. We then headed out about 16km northwards towards maybe the half-way point on the Abel Tasman Coastal Track (one of the country's great 9 walks).
From there we climbed into our kayaks and off we went! kayaking! I was in the front and Brett was in the back, cracking Jermaine-like jokes as we went. The first stop was a seal colony.. And you know what? seal colonies are cool, but they STINK. a lot. From there we visited some sort of a bird sanctuary island, which was intresting enough, and then made a stop at New Zealand's most photographed beach. We went for a 5 minute walk up a hill to get a better look, spent some time there, then returned to our kayaks. On another beach we had lunch: REALLY good ham/egg/cheese/stuff sandwiches, weird NZ muffins (with spinach, cheese, and I think egg), and coffee (yes, Brett brewed us coffee). We ran into 2 Australian girls, who were going to be camping there overnight. They were going to start a fire, which is illegal.. and which Brett did not like one bit. We befriended the Aussies though - Brett offered them free gas and coffee.. but was refused hugs. They took pictures of us on the beach, and off we went again.
The next part of the trip was somewhat unexpected. Earlier in the trip Brett informed us that he brought a sail and that we would sail across one of the larger bays instead of paddling across.. which I took as another one of his jokes.. but no! Out came a large piece of fabric. This was for real! Two of the corners of the sail were attached to 2 paddles, each one held high by the 2 guys in the back of the kayaks (Brett and the English guy). Me and the English lady (name already forgotten) held on to the other two corners by hand, with the other hand holding to the other kayak. It was a bit weird, but it worked VERY well. too well, almost! As soon as we deployed the sail the wind just took a hold of it and pushed us forward with incredible force. It was a real challenge to hold on to the sail and keep the kayaks close together at the same time.. plus I was at first a bit unsure about putting my hand so close to the English lady's groin, which was the only place I could really get a good hold of the kayak.. Her husband was in the Royal Navy! You don't screw with that. And while all that was going on, a LOT of water was making its way all over me, especially when the kayaks started getting seperated and we had to pull them back together.. a LOT of water. I got pretty damn wet! We ended up making it across the bay in record time, in only 21 minutes. Usually it takes a half an hour, or so Brett claimed anyway. If we had paddled it would have taken almost an hour..
There was one last stop - a "World famous beach", Brett said, "at least NZ world famous". There was a large rock maybe 50m out in the water, spherical, and split in the middle. Split Apple Rock beach.
We relaxed on the beach for a half an hour or so - enjoying some Brett-suppied cookies (or biscuits as the Kiwis call them), the sand, the sun, and all that. Afterwards it was 40 or so minutes of more kayaking until we were back in Keriteriteri. Once there, Brett and his kayaking associates were nice enough to drop me off at the hostel I was staying at (the ONLY hostel in town). It's pretty damn nice, if a bit pricy, but I do believe I have the room for myself! Which is awesome, cause I'm exhausted, and I need rest.
Tomorrow morning I am off on another expedition through Abel Tasman National Park - this time all the way north to the beginning of the great coastal walk. And I even get to walk some of it! Hopefully my knee doesn't complain.
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