Abel Tasman

Sequence III in our New Zealand Series.... After crossing the Cook Strait from the North to the South Island, we went on a 2day kayak trip in Abel Tasman National Park. The name of this park obviously filled me with pride and joy, since Abel Tasman was a Dutch seafarer who was the first European to sight New Zealand. The National Park is beautifully situated on the so called Golden Coast in the northwest corner of the South Island; it gets the most sunshine in the area, so we figured kayaking would be excellent.

The first day we went on a guided trip to become familiar with the kayak and safety procedures. Our group consisted of 8 people including our guide, and was aptly named "Seals, Lagoons, and Golden Beaches". We took a water taxi north to the Tonga Island seal colony, where we were dropped off at a small beach. We headed a little further north and paddled into some beautiful lagoons. We also got to see seals and their puppies, who were 2 months old and very playful:

We saw a lot of them as we were kayaking south. For lunch we stopped at a gorgeous lagoon, with almost transparent water, and enjoyed our sandwiches and the break from paddling:

The water was warm enough for swimming. We continued on past some nice beaches as well as the actual seal colony before entering the Anchorage, where the rest of the group was picked up. We paddled back out and camped at the next lagoon over, Te Pukatea beach. There were a few campsites, one of which we had reserved, and they overlooked the beach. We put up our tent and hiked up to a viewpoint to watch the sun set. The lagoon had a perfect crescent shape, and we saw stingrays settle in for the night:

The next morning the tides had taken all the footsteps from the beach, which made for beautiful pictures (it also explains the "Golden Beaches" name for the kayak trip...):

We paddled around another island with a bunch of seabirds (like cormorants) on our way to the return point. The water was extremely clear, you could actually see you paddle in the water.

The outfitter picked us up and took us back to our car; even though we had been driving in New Zealand for over a week, we still weren't used to the left hand driving: we drove from the gravel road on to the regular road, when all of a sudden we see this big camper coming straight for us in "our" lane...... until we realized that we were in his lane and we swiftly switched....

More to come.

Sven