Abel Tasman National Park

Today was designated as a New Zealand's Natural Beauty day. We were picked up by a bus at 7:15 am and dropped off at 6 pm, so, a full day, which tired out the old folk -due to excessive amounts of fresh air. We choose to take the bus up the coast to where we caught the cruise, thinking we would leave the twisty coastal road to a professional NZ driver. Good choice, as Dave slept on the bus trip up as well as the one back. Glad someone alert was driving! The bus took us from Nelson to Kaiteriteri where we caught the cruise up the coast. The tour bus which picked us up at our hotel, as well as other tourists at their hotel or hostel, also stopped at designated bus stops and picked up others (I think largely locals) and took them up the coast to their preferred spot. This is the second time we have seen a tour bus adding to its business by providing a local bus service.

Our boat left Kaiteriteri at 9:30 am, and popped up the coast, landing here and there in Abel Tasman National Park to drop off various people. It offered a variety of cruise & walk options, where they would drop you at Beach A in the morning, you would do a 4 km - 11 km walk, and they would pick you up at destination B in the afternoon (or the next day). Dave and I choose the option where they dropped us at Beach C in the morning, we went for lunch, took photos, walked down the beach, and they picked us up in the afternoon at the same Beach C (but about 1 km down, due to landing at a different spot in different tide times). Our beach was well up the coast so we got to see most of the coast line of Abel Tasman park, and a colony of seals. We sat outside on the top deck of the boat in the morning, and were glad when the sun chased away the clouds. It was lovely. We had lunch at a rather isolated lodge (mostly accessed by walkers, boat and helicopters), the photo is us walking up from the beach to the lodge - the tracks are from the quad used to haul luggage to and from the beach. It was very nicely appointed (in a rustic way), served a good lunch, was by a beautiful beach, and we thought it would have been a good idea to take the boat up one day, stay overnight, and come back the next day. Top photo (below) entitled "Old Man Washed up on Beach" aka "Dave Takes a Nap." Note Dave is upright in second photo on the sand spit.

When the boat picked us up in the afternoon we went back to the upper deck, but the wind had "freshened" and changed direction in the interim and it was a wild and wet ride. So we went inside and sat sedately and listened to the screams (akin to those on a roller coaster) from the open upper deck.

The boat we were on, and other sea shuttle boats, were really cool. They had a gangway which folded down and then slid out and ran up the beach on a roller to form a nice secure dry gangway. That is, until they landed us back at Kaiteriteri where the change in wind direction meant the beach landing was wet - we all took off our shoes and those of us in long pants rolled them up and we waded ashore. While wading ashore I got some wave action that wet my pant legs to mid-thigh - being denim I was still damp when I got back to the hotel. Once on the beach we had to wade through another tidal stream to get to the actual dry land. I felt like an evacuee in a disaster (minus the disaster). But the sun was shining and the day was warm, the scenery was beautiful, and the lunch was great.

After arriving back at the hotel we decided to drink some wine from the Martinborough region wine tour, eat our olives and jelly we bought yesterday, and cheese and crackers. A good way to enjoy New Zealand.