Race against the sun

The thing that has struck me most in New Zealand is the contrast between landscapes and how quickly you travel between them. It seemed a little bizarre yesterday morning to be waking up still thinking of Glacier hiking and opening the curtains to thick rainforest. We took at short stroll down to the beach by the Punakaiki hostel and to see the blowholes and pancake rocks. The sun came out as we started the long drive up to Golden Bay and Abel Tasman and it was the start of a couple of sunny days by the sea.

No sooner had we arrived at Annies Nirvana Lodge after a long and winding drive and we were back on the road after a tip off that the sunset at Wharaniki beach near Farewell Spit couldn't be missed. Our little car has taken a bit of a bashing with the mountain driving but its test was coming up. Speeding north we hit the last 6km of dirt track to the beach close beind other sunset seekers. In a cloud of dust Sam, cranking up Leona Lewis on the radio proclaimed 'I'd love to do rally driving, actually this is a bit like rally driving!' (I'm not sure rally drivers listen to Leona in moments of high speed but other than that it was close). Reaching the car park there was a 20 minute walk and with the sun rapidly sinking Sam raced ahead with the camera while I tried to keep up in my flip flops (still nursing blisters from the glacier boots). I reached the sand dunes out of breath to the realisation that we'd missed sunset by 10 minutes! The sky however was still a lovely colour and the rippled sand dunes glowed purple. Plus the stars started coming out brightly with the moon.

After all that excitement we spent today exploring as much of Abel Tasman as we could by car (alot more unsealed roads for the poor car which is now covered in dirt aswell). The whole area was beautiful with the sun shining and noone else around. We drove a little furhter along the coast to stay in Nelson tonight ~ we even found an 'affordable' bottle of wine in the supermarket. Happy days!

Really looking forward to our next stop at Hanmer Springs.

Liz