Helen and Randall on the road

A big cheer for Perrine Moncrieff without whose sterling efforts the Abel Tasman national park would not have come into being (and would probably have been logged out of existence).

After two boring days of work we arrived in Motueka on the edge of the park on Friday afternoon, but only after missing a crucial turning and taking a rather long but very scenic detour…

Then Saturday was an early start for sea kayaking into the park.

As has become the norm, we had glorious weather while driving, but on the morning of our trip into the park it was inevitably raining…

Still, Sam the kayaking guide was a cheery chap who imparted plenty of interesting facts about the flora and fauna and the history of the area and gave us plenty of breaks as it was tough paddling in the rather bumpy seas,  and despite sharing a double kayak:

Randall and I did not strangle each other so all good. As it was raining and we were in the sea we didn’t get many photos, but here is a rather splendid one of us in our matching gnome hats:

After getting back, changing into our dry clothes and eating our lunch we were off on the next part of the day, a boat trip to see a seal colony and get dropped off at a point further into the park to do a hike:

This is ‘Split Apple Rock’ which is where we kayaked to earlier in the day:

Then after calling to see the seals (impossible to photograph but very cool – a bit like aquatic cats) we got dropped off at Tonga Quarry to hike part of the Abel Tasman coastal track:

This beautiful beach is where we got picked up by the water taxi, but not before getting pecked speculatively by very curious and greedy ducks: