Nick’s world tour

Nelson’s a pretty town, with lots of open space, hanging baskets in the street and art galleries and cafes. It’s also on the doorstep to Abel Tasman National Park, where I spent a couple of days kayaking around the bays and islands.

Six of us and our guide head off in sea kayaks. A novelty is that unlike river ones, they have a rudder for steering. By the end of two days, I almost have the hang of it: at least when you had your paddle only to steer with, you had an excuse.

The weather is hot, the sea is still and the sky is blue on the first day as we paddle our way along the coastline, stopping off on beaches and taking advanatge of the calm water to explore some caves and get really close to the rocks, spotting some stingrays at our lunch stop.

As my definition of advance booking is the night before, I can’t camp with anyone else as the site was fully booked days ago, but have to stay on a floating backpakcers in Anchorage Bay, complete with cooked meals, hot showers and a bar. And no sandflies. For no extra cost. Shame. Tonight we see the tail of the comet that’s been so elusive for the past few weeks due to cloud cover, just as it heading away from earth.

Next day the sea is a bit rougher, which makes it more exciting, especially surfing into a little lagoon. No matter how hard they shouted, it was pretty difficult keeping head on to the beach, and one kayak capsized (not ours, we’re too good, ha ha). Yesterday we saw some leaping dolphins in the distance, and today we paddled around a seal sanctuary with lots of baby seals. Adventure over, we get a jet boat ride back to our departure point. More interesting, and much less crowded that walking the coastal track anway!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 at 2:18 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.