Are you tired of kayaking pictures yet?

Marc and I are back in Auckland after a month long, very wet trip to the South Island. Somehow the only time it managed to not rain was when we were kayaking. We should have made our trip a month long kayak around the South Island. Last week we headed to Abel Tasman Park and embarked on a two day kayak trip of epic proportions. (Well maybe semi-epic, it was only windy for a day and a half, but I am getting ahead of myself.)

When camping in Abel Tasman you have to book a certain campground ahead of time. The first campground that is a popular one day kayak away from Marahau (Abel Tasman access town) was booked so we booked one a bit further. It was a bit windy in the morning but by the afternoon we were battling through waves and whitecaps. We made it almost to our beach when it got really windy and after consulting our trusty map we figured we only had one more point to battle around. After rocking back and forth and going further and further out to avoid the exposed reef we finally made it to what we thought was "our" beach, only to find out that we had gone WAY too far and had done what most people do as a two day kayak trip in one day.

We (read I) decided we would not be going back to our initial beach and would hopefully not be taking up the 11th tent site as only 10 were allowed. Amazingly we ended up having the beach to ourselves, which is apparently unheard of at this time of year. YEAH for windy kayaking and map misreading!

Our own private beach

Doing a curtsy in my kayak skirt
An evening rainbow

It happened to be a full moon that evening, so we watched the moon rise above the island. We also used the light from the moon to go on a possum hunt. We were successful within minutes and managed to scare the possum enough to keep him away from our food and tent, unlike some of the previous nights campers.

The next day we woke up to a beautiful sunrise and calm waters and set out for a much more peaceful paddle.

We paddled to an island that had a seal colony and watched the seals frolic in the water and even saw some baby seals!

How many versions of this picture have you seen on our blog?!

After seeing the seals and exploring a lagoon we kayaked out to another island and found the perfect lunch spot just as the tide was going out.

We both took a dip, Marc's a little longer than mine.

During our lunch break the wind came up again with a vengance and as we made our way (slowly!) back to the mainland and were stopped by a kayak guide, telling us that it was WAY too windy to head back to shore and we should leave the kayak for a water taxi to pick it up and walk back along the Abel Tasman coastal track. The track goes along the coastline and while walking we watched one kayak painfully, oh so painfully make its way back to shore. I was so thankful we were not the ones doing the paddling and were instead using our feet to move. After a great hamburger we headed to Nelson, NZ that is, not BC but I think they are basically the same town. Pictures to come soon!

kyie is always right

last night we arrived in little marahau on the edge of abel tasman national park on the north tip of the south island of new zealand. we have been working our way up from fiordland in the south. in my zeal to inform you about our time in doubtful sound last post i skipped over some wonderful things kylie and i saw in between.

kylie already mentioned me biking in queenstown. it was fun to get on a bike again, and great to have lift accessed trails, but the trails werent particularly technical or interesting, except for the first 30 sec of the downhill track. actually, as it rained all afternoon the intermediate run got pretty fun in the mud towards the end.

after queenstown we ventured up over the crown ranges to wanaka, were we did a short day hike up iron mountain (picture above is of wanaka from the top) and a long day hike out to see rob roy glacier. i also went for a nice swim in lake wanaka, made friends with 2 10 year old british girls named laurel and riana (and then pulled their father's sailboat clear of the swimming buoys (boat pictured)).
laurel and riana and i became friends after i informed them they had beaten me in a secret race... turns out they were racing me as well and they were ecstatic.

i collected some water from the stream directly at the base of rob roy glacier. i was looking at it and thinking it looked a bit grey and cloudy and then thought to myself, "i guess that's all the minerals coming off the glacier... hey... its mineral water!" i dont know the concentrations of the various solutes but i do know that it tasted amazing.



after checking out rob roy we returned south to fiordland and my favourite camping spot, deer flats. it was a bit cloudier this time, but we still had the entire campground to ourselves.

after that it was time to kayak on doubtful sound, detailed in the previous post.

after kayaking, we made our slow way back up the south island, stopping to see all the waterfalls and scenic lookouts along the way. we camped on the northern tip of lake wanaka at another DOC campground and went for a nice walk on the lake just at sunset.

the next day we stopped at franz josef to go for a guided hike on the glacier, but we were rained out, so we continued on to punakaiki, home of the pancake rocks and some sweet blowholes.

i didnt expect too much from these blowholes, but when the waves hit the rocks at high tide it forces a huge gout of air and water out of some cracks in the rocks and puts on a spectacular show. every good solid spray would warm my heart. kylie and i found ourselves laughing and high fiving eachother after a particularly powerful burst, just as if our favourite sports hero had just slam dunked. for some reason it just made us happy. high tide was at night so we didnt get any blowhole shots, but these are the pancake rocks and this is a picture of a nonblowing blowhole.

from punakaiki (get it - panacaky) we drove along an impressive coastal highway and then turned inland to nelson lakes national park where i wanted to take one more chance to get into the alpine before leaving the south island. i chose a climb to a ridge walk to angeles lake where we would stay at the angeles hut before making our way back down the speargrass valley the next day.

kylie was a bit nervous about the ridge walk, but i knew she was strong enough, and the parks lady assured her that if she had done avalanche peak (which we climbed with julie and lowell) she could easily do the ridgewalk.

the intial hike was beautiful, but things got ugly halfway into the ridge when we became socked in and spent a lot of our time exposed to buffeting winds and pelting rain while hopping from boulder to boulder across a seemingly neverending spine disappearing into the fog.

kylie was not happy with my choice of activity, but she did it, and in good time no less.

angeles hut in the morning

the hut was crowded and we had to sleep on the floor under the table, but it was warm and dry and we met some friendly israeli girls who we hiked down with. the next day was sunny with only a few patches of rain.
we descended this valley, but we walked the ridge on the right the day before in the cloud.

yay for sunshine!

kylie got pretty muddy by trusting her waterproof boots... i managed to avoid the worst of it in order to protect my running shoes.

at the bottom, trusty gus started right up and took us out to the coast where we ate a huge meal and fell into a deep sleep, only to be awakened by the sunrise over the ocean this morning. today was spent doing laundry and drying our clothes and cleaning our camper, with a quick hike to a nice beach for good measure.

tomorrow we have rented a kayak for 2 days so it is back to the water to explore the beaches and rocky coastline of abel tasman national park. this is one of our last stops on the south island and we are beginning to have some separation anxiety... so much to see and do!

doubtful sound

we just got back last night from our 2 day kayak trip on doubtful sound (fjord). i guess that God listened to some of you as we had 2 days of fantastic sunshine, but NO rain. we will take it though.

we were picked up dark and early at 6:15 and boarded a van that drove us to a boat that took an hour to cross lake manapouri, where we boarded a bus that took us over a pass to deep cove, the inland arm of doubtful sound (every country needs a deep cove).

from there we hopped in our kayaks and spent a little over 5 hours on glassy perfect water, again with sheer cliffs towering on both sides of us. hall arm, the piece of the fjord we explored most thoroughly, had cliff walls that werent quite as tall as milford sound, but were much closer together.

at one point we navigated "the narrows" which looked pretty skinny, but were actually more of an illusion created by the curve of the glacial track. very cool either way.

at the end of hall arm, we went for a technical hike/scramble up a creek bed (in jandles - that's what kiwis call flipflops) to a nice little waterfall. i collected water from the falls for everyone's waterbottles, and while scramblin back up did my own gollum impression at someone's request.

we camped that night in a permanent site run by fiordland wilderness experience. its main feature was a bug tent, which came in very handy as the sandflies were incredibly thick when we arrived. sandflies, like mosquitoes, need a bloodmeal to lay their eggs, but unlike mosquitoes, who subtley siphon your sanguinous solutions, sandflies just bite a chunk out of you, leaving a raw welt that itches like crazy.

this is kylie bemoaning the swarms of tiny sandflies outside our tent.

as mentioned, we had no rain on this trip, which was PERFECT for camping. the next morning we started again at 6:30, and were packed up and on the water just after 8:00. our little arm of the sound was deceptively tranquil, but the main sound had a northerly wind at about 25 knots (that's windy).

leaving our lovely protected fjordial finger was a bit of a shock, as we transitioned from calm water to 2 and 3 foot swells in a matter of minutes. for about an hour and a half we battled our way down the fjord against the wind, until we could circumnavigate a 3 km bit of rock called elizabeth island.

once we got around the point, the wind pushed us all the way back to deep cove. for a while we just rode the current with the wind at our backs, but when that got boring we pulled out the kayak sails and zipped home under full sail. we didnt get any pictures of this as it was all we could do to hold on to the sail and keep it trimmed etc. but it was pretty cool. 2 kayaks pulled up side by side and held on to eachother, we then pulled out a square sail about 2m x2m, with ropes off each corner. the front 2 kayakers held the bottom ropes, and the back 2 kayakers tied their ropes to the top of their paddles and lifted them in the air to catch the wind. i was in charge of our siamese sailing ship and thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of coordinating the efforts of 4 people to keep a sail up and full and taking us in the right direction.

kylie was in the front holding on to the sail and trimming when appropriate. she was a bit nervous at first as our guide had told her that if she let the front split apart then one boat always capsizes. our speed and the waves crashing over the tips of the kayaks didnt help either. once we got in the groove though, she fully enjoyed it, although sailing is hard work for all concerned. we got back to the harbour at around 14:30, having spent over 6 hours on the water.

speaking of our guide, he was a great guy named ben. he was a kiwi but had done 2 years of university to finish his degree at the university of alberta in edmonton!! he had also worked as a guide on the north saskatchewan river just outside of rocky mountain house, where i have worked as well. last (canadian) summer he was working in canmore and he plans to go back this year again.

we had a great time comparing notes with him and listening to his stories.

overall it was a fantastic trip, with perfect weather, amazing scenery and a good group (kiwi guide, one other canadian girl, one german girl, one dutch guy and 2 austrian girls). kylie enjoyed being the fastest boat rather than the slowest. we have done a fair bit of kayaking now, in canada and here, and she is much stronger than she used to be (which is nice for me too!)
when we get around to it today, we plan to begin making our way back to the north tip of the south island, where we plan to do more kayaking and hiking and spend some time lying on white sandy beaches in abel tasman. until next time...

A little bit of this and a little bit of that . . .

Marc and I are back in Queenstown for the third . . . or the fourth time. We arrived last night just in time to see some NZ "snowbirds" give us a show. As we are creatures of habit, we ate our fourth Ferg Burger as well last night. Today, Marc is FINALLY mountain biking at Coronet Peak. While he has enjoyed it, it has affirmed his love of Canadian mountain biking.

His butt doesn't usually get this dirty in Canada!

A little bit of this. A few pictures of late:

Our pillows that we sleep on. Hopefully we do suwive it.

A few more pictures of the Christchurch Botanical Gardens

Waving to Julie and Lowell in Auckland's general direction
Campervan Art

I felt a bit weird taking this picture, as I had to zoom in unknowingly on children walking home from school but if you look closely you can see that they are wearing flourescent yellow vests. We arrived into Te Anau (the access town for Milford Sound) just as school was letting out and we were greeted with children boarding the school bus with yellow vests, as well as walking home. And we thought Canada was extra safety conscious!

And a little bit of that.

We have not yet written about Puzzling World. We stopped at this perplexing, puzzling place in Wanaka on our way to Christchurch to fly to Sydney. It is a museum of holograms, as well as a 'balance room.' It is one of the funnest museums we have ever been to and we especially enjoyed the balance room as well as the perspective room.

Going to the bathroom with the ancient Romans, quite the experience!

We have been working out a lot on this trip and thus are able to lift a heavy tower!

OUCH!

How would you feel having many Nelson Mandelas and Beethoven's watch your every move as you walk around a room? Very musical and free, I presume. ;)

Marc has really grown a lot on this trip!

In the balance room, the floor is slanted but the walls and doors are put in upright so it looks like you should be straight but aren't! It's very confusing to your brain! Everyone was walking around like they were drunk . . . and laughing like they were too!

Now we are off to Doubtful Sound for a two day kayak trip! We hope the weather cooperates!