09. - 12.12.10 Abel Tasman Kayak Tour

Sophia & I

Sophia, looking at a seal

Ok, I´ve written this a few days ago..... I hope you don´t mind^^

Yes, I´m still alive.

No, we still don´t have a car.

Yes, we are still in Christchurch and again, yes, we had a few tiny earthquakes and, to be honest, they getting damn annoying!!!

At the moment I´m sitting in the 4th hostel here in CHCH and I´m thinking back to the great days, right after the exam:

How did the South island welcome us? Fog, Rain, not warm…..

But, BUT, yes, there is a but! The next days were just amazing!!!  Abel Tasman Park, 3 days kayaking, it was like living in paradise!

We catched the bus to Motueka, a little town, with a nice Sunday market and a big Hippie scene. You could often smell smoked grass. We soon got to know, that this is something typical for NZ^^

Our hostel (the laughing Kiwi) was nice and we enjoyed the free Spa. Ok, the one in Rotorua was better…

May I give you an advice? If you ever should come to NZ, go to the Abel Tasman Park and do a Kayak Tour, as long as possible (3 days are enough, longer is great^^)!  We were picked up from the Sea Kayak Company Shuttle Service. They gave us an introduction and juhuuuuuuuuu, here we come!!!! Mhhh… ok, I was sick during the first couple of hours and felt like getting ill, but it soon got better.

The 4 Kayak girls

Blue sea, yellow- golden beaches, many different bays, waiting for us to be explored, sunshine, sunshine, sunshine & many seals! Seals at the rocks, seals in the sea, in front of our Kayaks, under our Kayaks plus a beautiful sunset combined with the feeling of adventure and freedom, wow! I´m still impressed, when I look at the pictures and think about these days. Thank you so much girls, it was great!!! Haha, oh, I´ve got to tell one story:

You have to know, that the bigger seals are very frightening, especially when they are annoyed. You´d better go out of their reach than…. We wanted to have a break at a little, great looking beach at the back of Tonga Island. `Can someone see some seals? No? Ok, let´s go there!´  As soon as we reached the beach and went out of our kayaks, a big seal appeared behind the rocks and barked at us. We went away as fast we could!

What I´ve almost forgotten: Vera & Marieke still believe, that they´ve seen a penguin in the water, but Sophia and I didn´t….. ;(

Sunset at Mosquito Bay

Next tip for your NZ trip: you don´t need to go to the “great” Kaiteriteri beach. Abel Tasman is enough! Kaiteriteri is just a beach, with cafés and motels in the back and many, many tourists. Like every other beach in the most popular tourist areas, not worth visiting, cause there are so many other things to do!