The rain came today and has been raining all day. Good news for us. We lingered over coffee, read emails, did laundry,and I did some work for my class at UST reading and commenting on journals. We had an early afternoon lunch and plan on going into town later. We are only 2 blocks from the Main Street. It has been a nice way to relax.
Notes: we noticed on the way to the park a lot of apple trees growing . They trim their trees so much that we had to look very closely to even recognize that they were apple trees. On the beach in Abel Tasman we noticed literally no trash coming onto shore. The water taxi folks were all so helpful, funny and positive. They get to be on the water all year and seem to love their jobs!
March 10
We got up early to grab a ride to Marahau where's we grabbed a water taxi to Awaroa. We started by loading the boat while it was in the trailer driven by a tractor. They drove it down to the waterfront and backed us up into the water. It was high tide and the water came right up to the edge of the road. On the way to our stop at Marahau, we stopped at two islands, Adele and Tonga to see furred seals. We saw babies and their mothers basking in the sun and swimming and jumping in the water. New Zealand has designated these islands as reserves so the seals are protected.
We went by Anchorage, Torrent, Bark, Onehutui Bays before we landed at Awaroa Bay. We noticed a lot of dead trees above the bays on the hills. Apparently it is a strategy of the Abel Tasman foresters to kill certain trees introduced earlier to get the native tree growth developing. The hills have northern pines , fern trees and strong tall hardwood trees.
We unloaded and started our hike back over the hills to Bark Bay where we would catch a water taxi back to Marahau. It was a beautiful hike. We rose above the bays and then met the bays and crossed the beach before we hit the trails again. We chose the high tide trails so we could have a vista but it added a few minutes to our hike. On certain parts of the track, one misstep and you ended up plunging a couple hundred feet. Forrest said it caused his hands to tingle. This walk was the Coastal Track walk. I loved it because we were immersed in the woods and then overlooked the bays before descending to the beach, so it was the best of hikes with such variety. It also was in good condition.
I went a little further to Medlands Beach while Forrest stopped in Bark Bay and spent time "counting seashells by the seashore." Seriously, he saw a starfish, crayfish and snails moving around in he sand and then diving into the sand. We waited about an hour walking around in the water and on the low tide beach area before the water taxi picked us up. We waded into the water and climbed onto the boat. Each taxi held about 16 people. We saw only a few people hiking our way on the path but somehow there were enough folks to fill 2 this at the end of the day. We got back to Marahau and ordered Chinese Take Aways and took it back to our place for dinner to enjoy with our bottle of Forrest wine. Although they predicted rain for today, we enjoyed sun the entire day!
March 9
It's mind boggling, but we are ahead of Minneapolis about 18 hours so the posting dates don't match. Crazy! A little post script to last night. We went to the pub in town and asked to share a table since it was so crowded. We enjoyed dinner with Lin and Mike Turnball, an English couple from Chichester, where we had visited with our exchange student a couple summers ago. In the small world category it got better- they also lived in Plymouth, MN for three years when he worked for a company there. We spent 2.5 hours with them and thoroughly enjoyed talking politics. It is so interesting talking about issues that are really affecting the whole world- immigration, trade, independence as countries etc.
So today, Thursday, we left the Olde Mill and took the bus to Nelson. We passed through Havelock 30 minutes from Blenheim. Havelock is a cute little village known as the mussel capital of the country. We passed over two saddles getting over the mountains to the sea below. When we finally arrived in Nelson the driver explained that the height of the tide in certain spots was 19 feet high and the tide recedes leaving mud banks for miles. That is why there are warnings everywhere about the danger of tides. We hopped on a trail hopper bus in Nelson to Motueka. Until Mapua Bay there were only 3 of us on the hopper. In Mapua Bay we picked up cyclists who had ridden the Taste Trail from Kaiteriteri to Mapua. The cyclists if they had continued would have had to take a ferry to connect the trail to Nelson. I also learned on this journey that there are deer farms all over NZ. They raise the deer for the velvet antlers that the Chinese pay good money for. They also raise them for venison. They say it is a common food eaten here, but we have yet to see it on a menu. We arrived in Motueka and walked about 5 minutes to our lodge . The Equestrian lodge has no horses but it has a lot of gardens and flowers and we have a deck to look out on the large yard. We also have a small kitchen so we have taken advantage of that! Motueka is very near to Abel Tasman area. Tonight we ate Indian food at "Simply Indian" in town which was fabulous.
We have an early start in the park tomorrow.
Note: The intercity bus system is great and the Trail Hopper bus was helpful in getting to the Tasman area. Both operate near the isites or airports. Motueka is larger than Kaiteriteri but a little farther away from the entrance to Abel Tasman. In either case you have to take transport because there is limited accommodations in Marahau.
No comments:
Post a Comment