Abel Tasman

On Sunday 29th April I woke up to gorgeous weather, just what you want when you are away to do a half day sea kayak and a half day walk through the Abel Tasman National Park. Lauren and I got picked up from our hostel by Southern Exposure Abel Tasman and were taken to their office near Marahau. Here we met our guide, Dan, and were given all our kayaking equipment. We were then taken down to the boat ramp where we got a water taxi.

Our first stop was Split Apple Rock which is a piece of granite rock which has split and is shaped like an apple. The rock is apparently used for lots of tourism adverts for New Zealand. We then headed north past Adele Island, Pinnacle Island, Tonga Island and got dropped off just north of Onetahuti Beach. Here we got a quick talk on Kayaking before getting into our kayaks and heading out to sea.

During our kayaking we went to see a number of seals. Sometimes these seals will jump up on the kayaks but they weren't that playful with us. The seals were quite small in comparison to the NZ fur seals I saw on Kangaroo Island in Australia.

We then kayaked south passing some amazing scenery and stopped for lunch on a beach between Bark Bay and South Head. The scenery here was awesome. There were lovely golden beaches with lots of hills and forests behind them. After lunch Lauren and I had 2 hours to walk south to Torrent Bay to catch the water taxi back again. The walk was along the top of the cliffs through the forest. It was a lovely walk. The whole day was fantastic and the weather was really kind to us.