Abel Tasman National Park

On Monday we travelled from Picton to Nelson. The weather was cool and overcast, an unbelievable 13 deg, havent experienced that temp for a while.
Nelson is a pretty place, quite large and surrounded by water and mountains. John was feeling a bit off with his head cold so we had a quiet day packing and preparing for our big week ahead.
Tuesday we were picked up from the Mercure just after 8 and driven by bus over to Moteuka and then to a boat at Kaiteriteri. The boat took us all the way to Totaranui almost at the top end of the park and we then commenced to walk from there to our first stop for the next 2 nights at Awaroa Bay. The Homestead we stayed in there was beautiful and full of amazing history. The house was built on an inlet and the next day we walked and kayaked around that inlet. The hospitality on this trip was fantastic. Our guides were only young girls but they knew lots of history about the area as well as the local vegetation.

After two great days at Awaroa we left for our next stop. We reached this by a combination of a 2 hour walk and then 3 hour paddle, with lots of stops in between. For the next two nights we stopped at Torrent Bay lodge which was equally as nice as a last stop, perhaps even nicer because it was directly on the beach. Day 4 was a "rest day" but we had fun kayaking for half a day to a gorgeous beach at Te Pukatea bay where we walked the headland enjoying the views and the birdsong before lunch on the beach and a paddle back to the homestead.
Day 5 was all kayaking with several rest stops again at beautiful beaches for morning tea and lunch. After lunch the wind was even strong enough for all 7 kayaks to raft together and put up a sail to "sail" for some of the journey. We made it back to Kaiteriteri by 2.3o and were then picked up by the bus and returned to pack up our gear and into Nelson.

It is so hard to sum up this trip, it has been fantastic! All that we had hoped for and more. We were so lucky to have fantastic fine weather for the whole time, with the cloudy conditions on Day 1 rapidly clearing to fine days with light winds. The accommodation we had was beautiful and the food and wine lovely, even down to our brown bag lunches and snacks provided for the days outings. And to top it all off, we made some great friends and the whole group doing the same trip were lots of fun! This area of New Zealand is definitely worth exploring.