Wharariki Beach - Dec 30, 2010

Another early morning today. We picked up a rental car around 9am and made our way out to Wharariki Beach. It was a really beautiful drive that had us wind our way over the mountain into Takaka, then along Golden Bay to the very top of the South Island, the point where the paved roads stop.






Old Man Rock:


We parked the car and did a quick 20 minute hike across some farmland to get to the beach. This is the home of the Archway Islands. This area isn't found in very many guide books, for the most part it's only known by the locals. It was a pretty incredible beach:
















Here's another cave that is hidden during high tide:



Next drove to Puponga and walked out along the Farewell Spit. This is a giant sand bar that extends for about 24kms. Stolen from Wikipedia:

The northern side of the dunes are steeper and unstable being constantly exposed to the prevailing winds which average over 25 km/h. The southern side, that which faces Golden Bay is more stable and largely covered with vegetation. The tide here can recede as much as seven kilometres exposing some 80 square kilometres of mud flats; a rich feeding ground for the many sea birds in the area but also a death trap to the frequently stranded whales.

Part of the beach along the way was almost entirely sea shells:


Admittedly, the walk along the spit was boring and quite windy. I don't think we'd ever do it again, but it was pretty cool once we finally made it to the sand dunes. We climbed up a hill and on the other side the landscape transformed into a desert!





From here we started making our way back towards Nelson and stopped at Pupu Springs to stretch our legs and walk around for a bit. This is the largest fresh water spring in New Zealand. The water is among the clearest in the world.

Abel Tasman - Dec 29, 2010

This was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. The Abel Tasman National Park is the smallest and arguably the most beautiful park in the country. It's rugged coastline is full of golden sand beaches and incredible views. There is some interesting wildlife including a large seal colony in the area. We figured a full day of kayaking along the coast would be the best way to see it!

We caught a shuttle at 7:15am and it took about an hour to pick everyone up and head to Kaiteriteri. From here we took a water taxi to Onetahuti beach near the centre of the park. The water was pretty brown near Kaiteriteri because of all the rain and all the rivers that feed into the area, but it was nice and blue by the time we reached Onetahuti.





Here's Split Apple Rock, we passed this in the boat on our way to Onetahuti Beach.



The weather was amazing and the golden sand was nice and warm beneath our feet. What a perfect day for some kayaking! When we arrived they had all the kayaks lined up and ready to go. We got a quick lesson and were quickly on our way.






Right off the bat we found a couple seals relaxing on the rocks.


We slowly made are way down to Mosquito Bay (luckily the name is deceiving, we didn't see any!) where we ate lunch on the beach.











After that we kayaked out to Pinnicle Island where we found some more seals. The New Zealand Fur Seals are pretty intersting, they can hold their breath the longer than any other species in the world and can therefore dive the deepest. They dive over 200 meters down and hold their breath for over 6 minutes. In the 19th century they were hunted down to less than 10% of the original numbers and are now a protected species.





After lunch we made our way up a river that led into the park. It was cool to get a view from inside the park rather than just from the ocean. This was just a short side-trip, so we had to turn around and head back once the water got too shallow and rocky.




Some hikers crossing a bridge over the river:



We didn't take any pictures, but towards the end of the trip we held all our kayaks together and put up a big sail. There were 2 other groups out kayaking with us (4 kayaks plus a guide in each group), so we raced them back to the shore. We destroyed the competition and sailed right onto the shore at Anchorage.

By now it was around 4:30pm, so we hopped on one last water taxi back to Kaiteriteri, then the shuttle back to Nelson. It's insane how hot the sun is down here. It's nothing like Canada or even Mexico. The ozone layer is thinner, so the UV rays are much stronger. You can really feel the sun burning you! We loaded sunblock on several times throughout the day but both of us managed to get pretty burnt.