Abel Tasman

Dec. 20th-23rd

  Well, I bought a car the day Mike arrived- I had test-driven it, and wanted him to look it over as well- a 1997 Mitsubishi Galant for $1450 New Zealand dollars! (about $1100 US).
  The next day we took off on our first road trip to Abel Tasman National Park at the North end of the South Island.

Here was our route through Lewis Pass.

 Mike doing the classic pose with the new car.

When we got to Abel Tasman, we had an orientation about the park and kayaking there; then we were dropped off at the North end of the park with our kayak- along the way in the water taxi we saw a ton of dolphins really close!  They were playful- leaping in the surf from our powerboat.
  Our first day we did not have far to go via kayak, so we explored around a bit, and found this blue penguin swimming!

 Gives you a sense of the landscape.

Here was our first night's campsite- Mosquito Bay.  The whole bay becomes land at low tide; at high tide the water sneaks around past the bay forming a lagoon that connects with a stream and waterfall more inland.  I have cousin Georgia's annotated guidebook from when she studied abroad in New Zealand- and this bay is where she camped as well, and is one of her highlights!

Neat looking bird at our second campsite at Anchorage.  This campsite had many more people, but there was a lot to do- we hiked for about 6 hours- including to the Cleopatra Pool (with eels!) and the long swing bridge over a river.  It was warm, so Mike and I did some swimming in a river pool 1/2 way along our hike.

 At the campsite we befriended one of the guides, Hamish, who let us tag along with his clients to the caves at the end of the beach- there were a ton of gloworms!  It looked like stars and constellations on the ceilings and walls of the caves.  When you shined light on the walls, though, in addition to the awesome gloworms, you could also see hundreds of wetas (the insect pictured above).  yuck!  Harmless though.  Luckily they did not seem to want to drop down on us.

We spent 3 days kayaking in Abel Tasman, then made the long drive (about 6 hours) back to Christchurch.  We went via Nelson then via the coast.  North of Kaikoura we stopped at the point with the short hike to the waterfall where I had seen seal pups swimming earlier in the month.  No seal pups this time at the falls- turns out they are too young- this time of year is when the seal pups are newborn!  Luckily we spotted a ton of newborn seal pups on the beach- most cuddling with a parent, but many playing/rough-housing with each other.  Too cute!  Good end to the trip, along with a tasty dinner in Amberley at the NW Cafe.