Ally The Canalian: 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.