Top of the South Island

The first place you hit as you come off the ferry is the small town of Picton and the stunning scenery of Malborough Sounds! In order to avoid the crowds we missed out Picton and headed straight into the heart of the Sounds, booking a guided kayak trip for the following day to go and explore the area! We parked up at a gorgeous spot right on the waters edge, making a campfire on the wet sands and enjoying a bottle or two of wine by moonlight!

A typical evening in Kiwi Land!

Our kayak trip left from the rather posh 'Portage Hotel', this time we were in proper kayaks with splash skirts and all the addded dangers these cause if you are unfortunate enough to capsize! Luckily the waters were calm and with the sun shining it made for a very pleasant day spent paddling around the Kenepuru Sound, stopping for elevens'es (homemade muffins & flapjacks), then delicious lunch on small secluded beach, nipping in for quick swim and watching sting ray glide by! Afterwards we made use of the Hotel's pool before driving onto Nelson that evening.

Criusing the Sounds!

Malborough Sounds!

The following day we had a quick wander around Nelson and then spent rest of the day chilling out on the gorgeous white sandy beach of Rabbit Island, before driving on up to the edge of Abel Tasman National Park ready for more kayak adventures the next day! This time we felt a bit more confident on the water so having declared that we were experienced kayakers with a good knowlegde of the oceans we were able to hire kayaks to take out on our own! Armed with our waterproof map, food, drink, and all the other kayak essentials we paddled out into the open ocean! Ok, so it wasn't really that adventurous as there were about 100 other bright red & yellow kayaks in the water with us! We had another fanastic day, stopping for elevens'es (good old flask of coffee & choc chip cookies!) at small little beach, dumping kayak and walking part of coastal track to find stunning Ancorage Cove for lunch, paddling back in the afternoon via gorgeous little islands! Life doesn't get much better than this....perfect sandy beaches, clear turquoise waters, amazing forested mountains and the freedom to explore it at your leisure!

Elevens'es in Abel Tasman

We continued up the coast that evening crossing Takaka Hill to park up by the coast in Golden Bay. The following day was Chris's Birthday and the plan had been to do a mountain bike trip around the Golden Bay area, unfortunately the bike shop was shut on a Sunday so we had to opt for the less exciting tramping option! This was a big mistake, what we thought was going to be a short walk around clear water Pupu Springs turned out to be a long winded hike up a very boring hill....although it was made better by a 3km long game of Pooh sticks along this tiny man made stream around the edge of steep mountain (quite a feat of engineering, built at turn of century to transport water to gold works)! Turns out we were at the wrong place, did eventually find Pupu Springs, did the short walk and had lunch in the sunshine! Chilled out by the beach for the afternoon before stocking the 'Coolie' with beers and setting up camp by the riverside...cooked Chris B-day dinner of Bangers, Smash, onion gravy & cabbage!!! All washed down with a couple of bottles of wine in the light of a full moon!

Sweet As Bro!!!