Wednesday 6 February 2008

Abel Tasman National Park












Abel Tasman National Park
Soft sandy beaches that can only be reached by boats. So we hired kayaks and paddled around the bays trying to stay afloat in the waves. They also had footpedal steering - right for right and left for left but I still constantly screwed it up and had to blame the odd rogue wave for floundering in the wrong direction. Fortunately I was also able to offer some wife paddling coaching after my years as chief dragon boat coach - that's what it says in my CV - this did not always help the team but we managed to get through to lunch without anyone falling out. We stayed overnight in the keel of a ship. They now have backpackers in the sea to protect the wildlife on land and provide a captive market for the captain's sausages. Next day was walking along the cliffs with a hair raising water taxi back to the the start over the mad mile - the tops of the waves were above the boat on this stretch of the water. Highlight on the way back was managing to get the taxi boat onto the back of a moving tractor trailer and then continuing on land behind the tractor.


Good things
Kayacking, swimming, carrot cake lunch with kawakawa tea made from leaves in the forest

Bad things
Nearly started international incident by accusing cheeky Israelis of moving all my stuff from the bunk and making me have the worst one. It was Al all along and the guys were really nice - holding my cup of tea while climbing the stairs etc
I still had the coffin bunk






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