6th jan 07

Well today we awoke in the south island for the first time

But today we didn’t have much time to sit around I needed to get my next ride done before the afternoon, I might add it was 10degrees in the sun and compared to what I have been used to. I froze, I decided as it got warmer to trundle off down this valley road but the deeper I got into the valley the less sun there was and the colder I got. Anyway in my shorts and t-shirt it got down to a bout 3degrees!!!! At that point I turned around a bit too cold for my liking! By the time I had gotten back out of the ice cold valley the temperature had hit 18 degrees thank god.

In the avo we went sea kayaking, half a day of it, all in all a total of 7km. To start off the instructors introduced them selves and decided that as it was Waitangi day we would have tribes. Ours was a sporting and musical tribe. After getting kitted up we climbed into the back of a boat (odd it may seem as the water was about 2km away) anyway they towed us down to the sea with a tractor quite novel I thought.

We were lowered into the sea all ready to set off when one of the instructors yelled out “we haven’t got the kayaks” so we tied the boat back up and they were loaded on.

We set off, the ride across the bay was really good fun, the boat was really quick and bouncing off the waves. Once in our kayaks we headed for an island where we saw seals and stopped off on a beach cove. In the cove we had lunch and a surprise! Due to it being Waitangi day the instructors magically produced a violin and proceeded to tell the story of how Abel Tasman became a national park. A long time ago, a Dutch woman was promoting for the area to be made a national park. The New Zealand Government didn’t agree with her proposal so she proceeded to take matters into her own hands. She contacted the Dutch government to announce that there was a beautiful part of the South Island about to be made a National Park in the honour of a Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. This was all without the New Zealand Governments knowledge. The Dutch Government had replied with great anticipation, and to accept New Zealand’s “offer” of a visit to see the Abel Tasman National Park. The Dutch women then let the New Zealand Government know of this arrangement, which subtly forced New Zealand to make the area into a National Park, and the beautiful area that we were lucky enough to experience.