Day 16…...

Awoke before dawn the the sound of rain on the tin roof. Didn't bode well for the kayak trip. Sky had cleared by 8 when we tucked into our muffins and coffee. Met up with our guide on the beach at Kaiteriteri. Shaws (Dutch) gave us a tour up the coast and told stories of Abel Tasman discovering New Zealand and Tasmania but missing Australia. He (Abel) got Maori protocol wrong on the first encounter and they killed a few of his men. AT gave a bad review on the 17 century Trip Advisor and no-one bothered with New Zealand for another 150 years. We are by now a well coordinated kayak team (although A still manages to back seat drive…), although I'm not sure if we are ready to put one on the Christmas list.

The furthest point of the trip was split apple rock, spherical lump of granite perched on a pile of rocks out to sea, split cleanly in half. Needless to say, there were several Maori legends explaining where it came from and how it came to be split.

Afternoon's activity was a 8km bush walk in the Abel Tasman park. Shortly after we boarded the water bus to the start point it started raining….heavily and looked like carrying on all afternoon. We decided to leave the walk for the next day, which was a good job as we went further up the coast to a seal colony and saw some cute 6 week old pups. Note the guides on the boat had the most amazing afros!

That evening Sue was cooking lasagna for us. Popped over to the chateau at 730 and tucked in to a bottle of Mud Hut PN. Good value at $22. We were joined at dinner by Hans and Johanna from Holland. Sue spent half the meal trying to fix up her some with the guests' daughters. Jim arrived home from band practice at 930 and with little encouragement, stood outside and piped in dessert.Quite surreal to hear Scotland the Brave sounding out over the New Zealand highlands….