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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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“Crazy Kayak adventure” |
Day 1 - The Walk
Named after a Dutch explorer Abel Tasman National Park is beautiful coastline of rocky shores and secluded cove beaches.
They arrived in the early morning to find a place to stay, and arrange activities for the next couple of days. After checking into a cosy place in the hills they donned their walking shoes, insect repellent and sun cream and headed for a walk along the Abel Tasman trial, carrying a hastily thrown together picnic with them.
The going was pretty tough, but the views we're worth it with sandy cove after sandy cove. 2 hours in, they were getting into the swing of things - feeling seriously hard core walkers and with a smile for all their passing fellow hikers. They stopped for lunch on a lovely beach. Liz was very keen not share the picnic with the seagulls, maligning their peskyness as they quite blatantly eyed her up for a pecked posterior. The travellers were later to discover that the gulls were not the only creatures on this far off isle to find her irrisistable after she collected some nasty sand fly bites along the way.
After a relaxing lunch, thought turned to how they would get home, and feeling adventurous they decided to venture further into the park and hope to find a water taxi port, rather than to backtrack along the same path. The spirit of adventure was rewarded with the perfect afternoon just walking through this beautifully green costal area.
A futher two hours and they were starting to feel a little less adventurous and praying to find the beach they were headed for. For some reason the usual arrangement of Liz navigating for the pair had been reversed, and rather stupidly since they were on foot and in the middle of nowhere - dave had the map and was becoming increasingly worried he was leading them astray. Fortunately they then saw the wonderful beach of their destination in the distance and would soon be sailing back exhausted but content through some very choppy waters.
That night they found out that many things, including petrol stations and Chip Shops close early in that part of the world
Day 2 - The Kayak
The next day brought another ealy start with a rendezvous on the beach with the Kayak team for the day. The trip was Seals and Remote Shores - Which promised to be one of the gentler activites. Dave and Liz have never shared a kayak and today they found out that they probably shouldn't. The seas were unusually choppy meaning a longer, harder and less successful seal watch. To her credit Liz grew in confidence in the kayak, whilst Dave grew tired and grumpy, and then in an unforgiveable moment accused Liz of not paddling hard enough - He couldn't quite make out Lizs reply over the sound of the waves, but it probably sounded like something about being an "anchor". He agreed this must be the reason they couldn't keep up with the other teams.
The rewards for the hard work were some seals, spending some time playing on a lovely sunny beach and a climb up a water fall at the end of the day.
They returned to the car happy for the experience and in good spirts as they moved on to Westport town. Dave hoped Liz had forgiven him for being a useless and horrible sailor, for he was truly very sorry even if too proud to admit it was probably him that was slowing them up.
Perhaps Liz had forgiven him, as she agreed to Daves adventure plan for the next day - confronting her fear of going into confined spaces underground for adventure caving!
previous travel blog entry
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