Normallyour good friends Steve and Jemma, who are currently residing in Kuwait (!), came over to NZ for a nosey around in December and graced us with their presence from the 22 December for a week or so before heading down to Queenstown. It was great to see them again so, to celebrate, we headed off with the boat to the Abel Tasman national park for an overnight camping trip. The gateway to the park (since there are no roads) is the beach town of Kaitiritiri about 45 mins from Nelson. We got there around 11am, loaded up the boat with Buster, Lisa, Jemma, Steve and I and set off round the coast. The Abel Park is pretty huge and covers most of the top North East of the South Island. It has a 3 day walk running through it that gets about 200 people a day starting out in high season, with government owned camp sites every 10 miles or so. The main draw is the crystal waters, golden sands, lack of any commercialization and its wildlife. The best bet if you want more info is to Google ‘Abel Tasman’.

The place we were heading was called Mosquito Bay – a small sandy bay about half way up the coast that can only be accessed by boat. There are loads of Kayakers around these parts, and plenty of places to hire them, so we definitely weren’t alone on the sea.

After pitching up we headed out to the marine reserve around Tonga Island, which is renowned for seals (and swimming with them). We saw some seals kicking around so Stevo jumped in with his flippers and mask and swam over to their spot. The next 20mins was like something out of a pantomime as the seals swam up behind Steve, within arm’s reach, only to disappear when he turned around. “It’s behind you”!

That evening Steve and I went out to catch some supper and, after a few hours happy fishing, came home with 3 decent sized fish. We actually caught a fair few fishes but put the majority back because they were either too small or too ugly. The ones we did catch though got trimmed up quick sharp and stuck on the BBQ – yum.

As the tide came in we were pretty much alone on this beach apart from a few other overnight Kayakers. At about 4 quid each to camp it was definitely a good cheap place to spend the night.

We only stopped the one night and came home on Christmas Eve – we had fun though, saw some of the national park and caught some sun. Not a bad way to kick off the Christmas week.

Check out Flickr for the pictures

 


Comments

Celia and Roy

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:41:34



The pictures are all simply beautiful, what a fantastic contrast to Christmas-time in the Northern hemisphere.
BUT........Mosquito Bay!! Don't like the sound of that, and hope that there were not too many especially as you were under canvas. A Christmas to remember ...eh brew!

 

PJ

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:15:16

Luckily the bay didn't live up to its name!! There are always sand flys around but we are getting used to those little critters now (and a mix of detol and baby oil is the local secret that works a treat). I like that there isnt anything (apart from Sharks and Orcas) that can do you any harm, and on the land there is one spider that is poisenous - you'd have to be unlucky to stumble across that.

Anyway - yes, a nice break - I'll do updates on the rest of our Christmas hols this weekend - lots to write about, just finding the time.

PJ xx

 



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