Days 108, 109 and 110

We had another long bus ride ahead of us so we said goodbye to Franz Josef and began our trip to Nelson. We did get to stop off at Punakaiki to see the Pancake rocks, which was the only point of the day where it stopped raining! There were also blowholes where the waves caused jets of seawater to be forced out of holes in the rock, pretty cool to see. The views along the whole drive helped make the time fly by and the bus driver kindly dropped us at our accommodation (Tasman Bay Backpackers). We had chosen Tasman Bay as they served FREE chocolate pudding and ice cream every night at 8pm! Our main reason for visiting Nelson though was for its close proximity to Abel Tasman National Park. As the forecast looked best for our second day in Nelson, we booked a kayak and walking tour to do in the park then.

As it turned out the weather was pretty good the next day too, so we decided to walk to 'The centre of New Zealand'. It was not too long a walk, and took us up a big hill to the mid-point between the North and South islands. For the rest of the day we took a walk along the river and made the most of the sunshine relaxing out on the sea front, whilst making sure we were back in time for chocolate pudding.

The 7am pick up for Abel Tasman wasn't much fun but we seemed to have picked a great day for kayaking. Our first job was to prepare the sea kayaks. They were very different to our Vietnam ones as they had a rudder, which had to be controlled by the most coordinated person. Therefore Michelle was out! After an eventful launch we were off with our guide and the five other people in our group. The sea was really calm and we were soon exploring the amazing coastline of Abel Tasman. Our kayak took us to the Watering Cove via a seal colony on a small island just off the coast. The Island was also home to many young Kiwi birds as it is used as a breeding base due to it being rat/stoat free. We had lunch on the beach at Watering Cove before jumping on a watertaxi to take us abit further up the coast. The driver was a little crazy and enjoyed doughnuting his way around the bay. For the second half of the day we walked through the Kiwi forest coastal track from Torrent Bay to Bark Bay. Our journey provided great views with the highlight being a rope bridge suspended across the river, not one for those scared of heights.