Mindy and I had a fantastic night at Ambleside Bed & Breakfast. Here is a picture of Mindy with the owner, Kees (previously misspelled his name), as we were leaving in the AM.
The focus of today was kayaking Abel Tasman National Park on the north side of NZ's south island. The drive from Nelson took 1 hour and was our first experience cruising the country side of NZ. This little nugget of road was a perfect introduction to the terrain of the country. The terrain can be described in one word - awesome!
We drove to a small town called Marahau where we checked in with out Kayak guides. The plan for the day was to kayak for about 5 hours from one major bay in the national park to another, with lunch stop mid-day. Mindy and I were coupled with another duo, to girls from Germany, for the kayak venture. However the girls were only kayaking in the morning and then going for a hike in the afternoon. They would essentially hike the coast that we would kayak in the afternoon. And then the water taxi service would pick all of us in the same end location (torrent bay).
So on we went. We took a water taxi service about 20 minutes north into the park and unloaded on to a deserted beach (see below).
After some kayak introduction talk (which was insanely annoying, I mean how hard is it to kayak!), we were on our way!
The highlight of the day was kayaking around an island preserve (forgot the name of the island) that was the home to a colony of fur seals. We got to paddle up close to them and take many pictures. Here is one of a pup.
After two hours of paddling, we arrived at lunch. Figuring we were a bit tired from kayaking in the open ocean, we decided to make an impromptu change to our schedule. We ditched the kayaks to join the two Germans on the afternoon 6.5km hike to Torrent Bay. It was an amazing walk through lush rainforest that was highlighted by this excellent swing bridge that freaked the poop out of Mindy because it was so high off the ground!
The end of the hike provided us with one of the many photo opportunities of the day!
After leaving Abel Tasman park, we drove 3 hours to Blenheim, in the Marlborough wine region of NZ.
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