Where's the Ark? a.k.a. Hiking in Abel Tasman National Park

After leaving the sea lions behind, the bus made its way to Picton which is in the middle of Marlbourough wine country and where the ferry terminal is located to get to the North Island. My first bus left me behind while they made their way up north. I at lunch at an amazing Dutch bakery, did some shopping and then headed out for a wine tour.

Let's start by saying that I know absolutely nothing about wine, other than white is better than red. I had tonnes of fun though. It's fun to drink about 3 bottles of wine in an afternoon. Plus all the crackers you get to 'clear your palette'. The wine was quite good too, though I honestly couldn't tell you the name of one.

 

Picton Harbor

The next day, it started to rain, and I joined my new group on the tour. They had spent the last two weeks together on the North Island. All it took was a couple of shots at the schnapps distillery and I was in with Irish crowd.

Most of the day was driving and we saw lots of what you see below. Green fields and misty mountains. There was even a moment when traffic stopped because a sheep herd.

We arrived at Abel Tasman National Park just before dark. Our camp seemed quite nice at the beginning. There were 6 bunks to a cabin. The kitchen was huge and we could all cook at the same time. There was a TV with comfy couches. We all made dinner and then played drinking games around the table. The Irish crew were the leaders and made sure that everyone participated. The one negative side effect of the drinking, was the fact that I had to go to the toilet about 16 times in the night. This was not an issue, other than the fact that it was pouring rain, and the porta-potty was about 20 m away from my cabin. Thank God I'm a teacher and have learned to hold it.

When I woke up the next morning, the rain had not stopped, but since we only had one day here, I was going to take advantage and do some hiking. It only took about 10 minutes and I was soaking wet, and the view was taken up by rain clouds, but there were still some very cool and very wet things to see on my tramping expedition.

Beautiful Mussel shells

After getting beyond drenched (is there even a word for this), I walked back to our camp to spend the afternoon watching "Four Weddings" and makeover shows with the non-crazy people who did not go hiking.

The rain continued through the night and I'm still amazed that I did not get a bladder infection from having to hold it again for the night. This time, there was nooooo way I was going out into the torrential downpour. It so, was not worth it.

I love rain. Especially when I can be inside, on a couch, watching movies. I do not like rain when it messes with my trip. In this case,  flooding of the Matakitaki River did not let us get to the Pancake Rocks in Punakaiki. Instead, we were stuck in Murchison which had the highlight of a small town museum. The good news, is there was a liquor store across the street from the hostel and we had the run of the entire hostel because it was so small. Interestingly enough, this was probably one of the best days in New Zealand. A few of us checked out the flooding river and the countryside, then we spent the afternoon watching movies, playing games and, yes (surprise, surprise!), drinking. Hence, there was some Riverdance being performed.

The flooding

These friendly cows came right to fence when we went by

Real Irish Dancing

Just hanging out in the hostel

Haere mai (Welcome) to New Zealand



After my final goodbyes to friends and 'family' at the airport, I was on my way to....

Sydney.

Yup, that's right. Anywhere you want to go, you have to go through Sydney, where I was going to get to spend 4 hours just hanging around. Luckily, my friend Nina was in Sydney and decided to make the trip to the airport to keep me company. After various FaceBook messages (who knew life could be so hard without a cell phone) we finally met up at the international terminal where we shared a final drink together before I boarded my plane for Christchurch.

 

I arrived around midnight in Christchurch and made my way to my hostel (one of the few still going after the earthquakes) which was an old jail. I don't know why I continue to do this to myself. You think I would have learned after staying just metres away from Port Arthur and not getting any sleep. At least here there were no ghost stories to deal with, just my own imagination. It also helped that I was so tired that my imagination managed to stay away most of the night.

 

The next morning I caught a bus to the Antarctic centre so that I could hop on my tour bus. This was the extent of my tour of Christchurch. With all the earthquakes tours don't even go here anymore which is an absolute shame. While I was in New Zealand there was tonnes in the news about whether to re-build the cathedral and re-develop downtown or not. Apparently, most of the population has moved away with no plans to return. Here's hoping Christchurch can recover.

 

I climbed on my bus and we headed off towards Kaikoura.  The great (and not so great) about hop on and hop off tours is that you are constantly meeting new people and others are staying behind. I was joining a bunch of people who were at the end of the tour but they were more than willing to invite me in and I quickly became a member of the group.

 

When we arrived in Kaikoura we were immediately dropped off to go swimming with some dusky dolphins. It was amazing, other than the freezing cold water. Thank God for wetsuits and hot water on the boat. You'd be swimming around, looking for something and then all of sudden this shadowy shape would be bolting right towards you. I mean.... right towards you. You'd start panicking and then the dolphin would turn on a dime and blow right by. Then you'd see something flash out your periphal vision and a dolphin would fly by from behind. It was insane and manic and one of the coolest things I have every done. Check out just a little bit of what it was like below. Also, if you listen really closely, you can hear them talking and the funny noises we were supposed to make to attract them.  I really think the company just told us to do that so they could laugh at us 'cause we sounded stupid, for sure.

 

 

Just hanging on the boat

Some of my dolphin friends

Looking hot as always in the snorkel gear

The view on this coast is absolutely spectacular. Real Mountains!!!!

On the walk back to the hostel, we were able to enjoy the view as well as the sunset.

Back at the hostel, it was time for some bonding with my group. We had some amazing free soup (which really warmed me up after sub-zero water) and the best fish and chips that I have ever had EVER. Oh soooo gooood! Then it was off to the bar for some cider and Quiz Night. Even though the quizmaster was sick and they weren't going to have it, we made them do it anyway. Yay for Tui beer bottle caps. Unfortunately, my all Canadian team was a little lax on New Zealand history and pop culture, so we had to race drink beer through a straw to not be last. Talk about bloatage. It took me a few minutes to recover, but we won.

The next morning we were off to check out one of the coolest places in New Zealand. Maybe even in the world. It definitely rivalled swimming with dolphins.

Up the coast from Kaikoura, there is a little creek that goes down to the ocean. If you follow that creek up, you come to a pool with a waterfall, which is beautiful, but that's not the cool part. In this pool are seal lion pups playing and jumping around. They also like to pose for pictures. I could have stayed for hours. The pups make their way up the creek from the sea lion colony at the beach. Here at the pool, they are safe from sharks and other sea creatures that eat them. They stay until they get hungry, then go back to get food from mom.

This was my first day in New Zealand. I wrote on my FaceBook page that it could only get better. I don't think that I was entirely honest with that statement. I'm pretty sure this first day was the best one. Even though I made some good friends and had some other amazing experiences in the next 20 days, this day really made New Zealand for me.