Today we got up and drove out of nelson to go Sea Kayaking at Abel Tasman National Park. We left the Green Monkey at 7am, for the 1.5 hour drive to the park entrance. We were in kind of a rush this morning, and I didn't do a good job of checking the GPS waypoint, which was a bit off. That caused a little panic as we were getting close and were almost late... We made it there in plenty of time. We met our guide, Dazza, yes, that's his name. He was a prototypical Kiwi Kayaker with long sunbleached blonde hair and super-tanned complexion. Also along for our trip was a guy, Oshiro, from Japan, who spoke very little english, and a couple from Holland.
After a quick briefing, at the kayak center which was around a small shed, we got onto the water taxi that would take us to the start of the paddling. The water taxi was on a boat trailer attached to a big farm tractor. The farm tractor pulled the boat with our group and one other down the little road and out to the mud flat. It was low tide at the time, so the tractor motored on out over the mud flat and then backed us into the water and sent us off.
The boat ride to the start was very choppy, and took a little over 30 minutes to get to the start. We prepared the boats and then paddled out to an active fur seal colony called Tonga Island.
The island was surrounded by large rocks, and the surf was pounding the rocks pretty heavilly. We stayed as close to the coast as we dared, in order to get a good look at the sea lions. There were only a very few, moslty females and a few pups, because the males had all left for the summer.
We then paddled back to the shoreline against fairly strong winds and surf. It seemed like about 20 minutes of continuous hard paddling to fight the conditions. Then, once we had the wind at our backs, Dazza pulled out a square sail. The 3 kayaks rafted up and the two folks sitting in front on either side (Katie and the girl from Holland) held onto a strap connected a corner of the sail. The two on the outsides in the rear of the kayaks (Me and the guy from Holland) attached the other two corners of the sail to the ends of their paddles with a velcro strap. Then we lifted our paddles vertically into the air, forming a huge square sail. We had to brace the paddle against the front of our seat to provide some leverage against the force of the sail. Pretty soon we were just flying along the water being pulled and bounced along at around 5-6 knots.
A little later we stopped on a beach for lunch. Dazza cooked up some steak pitas in a big frying pan, and grilled the bread in it. We had sides of salad and potatoes. After lunch we made some coffee in a French press pot. It was a big meal,far more fancy than I expected. During lunch I asked Dazza about his big Kayaking trips. He has kayaked the Cook Strait from Wellington to Picton solo. He also told me about a 1 month solo trip he had taken around the southern regions of the south island. Pretty cool stuff.
We spent the rest of the day exploring around the lagoons and little inlets. Dazza was very knowledgable and pointed out all of the wildlife we saw along the way, and told us about the history of the Park. We saw a stingray just before the start, several gannets, and this relative of the penguin that is the only bird with webbed feet that nests in trees.
When we got to the pickup point, we saw a capsized kayak, which apparently belongd to two girls who got too close to some of the rocks. They were standing on the beach with bloodied legs and shoulders from being bounced up against the rocks. It looked like just really bad abrasions, and that they would be ok.
We took the water taxi back to the dock (only a 5-10 minute ride this time) and finished up at the kayak center where we got a hot shower, and loaded up and headed for Punakaiki. We took a route reccommended by the owner of th Green Monkey, which turned out to be very scenic along the Motueka River Valley, and the Lower Buller Valley. The drive took about 3.5 hours.
We checked into the Te Niku Lodge and called it a night...
P.S. Happy Birthday Caitlin!
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