We woke up and used the campsite facilities, and went to reception to pay as reception had been closed when we arrived the night before. They gave us a $10 discount so it was only $12.50 each which isn't too bad.

When we had filled up with water and emptied our waste water and toilet (nice) I drove us to the Marahau, a gateway to the Abel Tasman National Park, which took about three hours. We paid for a water taxi to Anchorage, which we had some 10% off vouchers for, so it was $28.80 each instead of $32, then went to wait for it.

We had to get on the boat on land, as it was towed by a tractor to the sea. It was quite surreal sitting in a boat with a life jacket travelling on land!

The driver reversed us into the sea, unattached the tractor and then jumped in.

We turned around slowly, and then just took off at full speed. I wasn't really expecting it, even though it was quite obviously a speedboat. We did really sharp turns where the side of the boat was nearly in the water, it was really fun! First he took us to see 'split apple rock', a rock which is sliced in half perfectly down the middle. He told us it was made of fiberglass and was a piece of set left over from Lord of the Rings. I completely believed him, but it turned out he was actually joking and it was actually a real rock that is 140,000,000 years old. Whoops. He then pointed out some birds which look just like penguins but can fly and live in trees - 'the famous 'New Zealand tree penguin'. Again I was amazed and completely believed him, but it turns out they were actually cormorants (or shags to the kiwis). I should probably try to be less gullible!

We then sped off to look at some seals on Adele Island, before finally being taken to Anchorage. We stopped on the beach - the sea is so blue and the sand so golden, it was literally amazing. We then embarked upon an eight mile, or 13km walk back to Marahau. The views we saw on the way were absolutely amazing, but a three and a half hour walk was enough for me. I don't know how people do the whole three day coastal track carrying a backpack and camping equipment - they must be mad. The back of my left knee and my feet really hurt afterwards but I'm glad we did it because of the views.

When we got back to Colin, I drove us along highway 60 to the Ngarua Caves. It was my first experience of a proper mountain pass. The scenic views were beautiful but I mainly had to concentrate on not falling off the edge! It was fun. We parked up just in front of the entrance to the caves at a lookout point, and after dinner we watched Sense & Sensbility with the popcorn. The popcorn caused us a lot of grief, I burnt the first batch, and Hannah dropped the second batch all over the floor. We ate it anyway as we couldn't be bothered with a third batch!

By bedtime it had started raining and had got REALLY windy. I kept waking up in the night convinced that we were going to blow off the side of the mountain (it turned out in the morning that we weren't parked facing a sheer drop like I thought, but just a gently sloping field. Still, it would have been inconvenient to blow over.) We all woke up at around 6am and tried to assure each other that we would not topple over. The wind was so strong and loud though that it was quite scary!

xxx