Kingsgate Beachcomber Nelson

... sense it was a relief, but I really would have loved to be able to say that I had swam with dolphins! That night we parked up in another carpark and slept there - we were starting to get the hang of this!<br><br>We were now nearing the far northlands, the main reason why we were travelling up all this way - we wanted to see &#8216;Cape Reinga&#8217;, the most northerly point of New Zealand - &#8216;where the Tasman and the Pacific oceans meet, and in Maori beliefs, where ...

... of the bay. Beautiful. It was a three hour ferry ride to Picton, but a "lovely ride" indeed. There was a lunch stop on the way to Nelson, where we could walk to a swing bridge over a river (there are a lot of cool swing bridges in New Zealand, or so it seems). Nelson is the gateway to Abel Tasman National Park, but we don't have time to go there, oh well. Nelson too is on the water, with water on one side and mountains on ...

... A lot of boats were just sitting on dry land due to the low tide. On the ride to the lodge, we saw some seal pups, only a few months old. Their parents leave them in a safe cove when they go fishing. They were very curious and sweet! We are going to try to kayak back to them later. The lodge is very cool and on a long beach. Mom and I went for a walk on the beach and ...

... also stopped at a lovely secluded beach called Fishermans Cove. We did this through the company Abel Tasman Sailing Adventures. The day was topped off by taking a (free) water taxi from Kaiteriteri Beach to Marahau (where we were staying). There was a bit of a swell on this day, and it meant that we rode some big waves on the way home. The boat came out of the water a few times and landed ...

... to myself with an ensuite bathroom! Luxury! How on earth was I going to make the jump back to hostelling after this!? Lengths of showers were restricted to 5 minutes because of the difficulties of disposing of the water and the electricity came from a generator which meant that hairdryers were banned because they would overload the system! Dinner was lovely and it was a good chance to start to get to know the rest of the group. Mike and Shirley from Chelmsford, travelling ...

... my shoulders and arms had just about had it from all that paddling! The water taxi was waiting for us to take us back to Marahau. It took a while to load on all the kayaks, meanwhile I was freezing as I sat on the boat in soaking wet trousers. Although the sun was beaming, it being Spring, there was still a sharp chill in the air. When the boat got moving, I was even colder as the wind was blowing my wet clothes onto my skin. When we got ...

Toen ik eindelijk in mijn hostel in Nelson aankwam (wat kunnen 2,5 uur lang duren) werd ik meteen ontmoedigd door de hostelcrew. Dat ging nooit meer lukken. De vloed zou rond 12.30/13.00 uur komen en het zou met de auto al 2/3 uur duren om er te komen, laat staan met de bus. Grrrr. Ging mijn voornemen. Een tijdje heb ik het nieuws nog gevolgd: het is hier uiteraard echt voorpagina-nieuws: sinds 1993 zijn er niet meer zoveel ...

... set eyes on New Zealand (and my home state of Tasmania for that matter) in 1642, the national park has a very popular three day bushwalk around the coast&#8217;s bays and inlets. I decided to venture along the southern end of the track for an hour or so to get some exercise. The check-in and check-out logbooks in the information hut were filled with the names of walkers, the date and time and where they were ...