We sat down on the beach of Kaiteriteri bright and early raring to get in the water but first we had to go through our safety briefing with Tim, one of the Kaiteriteri Kayaking guides.
We were setting off for 3 days paddling with their kayaks, fully loaded up with tents, sleeping kit, food for the duration, everything we needed, hardly surprisingly they wanted to make sure their kit got back to them and didn’t float off to sea (with us). We went through capsize routines, watching the weather, landing the kayaks on the beach, and which bits of the kayaks would keep our clothes the driest.
Once in the water and ready to go we slowly paddled away from the shore leaving the guide behind. Becky and Zoe in their double kayak and me, apparently being the more competent in a single. Our first stop was appletree bay to try our first beach landing. (which went great)
Kayaking through the Abel Tasman National Park was absolutely fantastic, amazing pointy hills, little green islands full of wildlife, seals, dolphins, white sandy beaches, secluded campsites only accessible from the sea, three days absoluetly isn’t enough, I could have kept going and going, sadly the kayaks were hired and had to go back.
Our two nights accomadation were provided by DOC, the guys in charge of all the parks in New Zealand. Our first night in my tent, a little cramped with the 3 of us but we stayed dry, our second night in a hut at Bark Bay, which was also on a walking path, with luxurious bunk beds, and even a cold outdoor shower! a couple 4 year olds to keep us entertained (or maybe us entertaining them). Our food was of the dehydrated variety, with soups, pastas (and dehydrated ice cream for Becky) on the menu.
We paddled around the coast for the three days getting more and more excited by the day. We kayaked about with seals swimming underneath us, we splashed through the wake of the speeding water taxis, navigated our way through reefs. Our last day we landed on the beach (landing involves paddling as fast as you can at the shore, and as you slide up the sand, jumping out before the waves try to drag you back), dragged our kayaks up, got all our kit out and did a spot of sun bathing before our taxi arrived.
Words just don’t do the three days justice, so look at these photos!
Taupo:
Photos : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/taupo/
Went sailing on Lake Taupo (but no breeze at all!), visited the CRATERS OF THE MOON! – a highly thermal area near Taupo- boiling steam, bubbling mud, pink and green earth. Huka Prawn- the most hilarious fun you can have with 15cm Malaysian Prawns, Huka falls, watching bungy jumpers fall over rivers and come up drenched, the nicest Top 10 park yet (I will go on a jumping pillow!)   Â
Rotorua:
Photos : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/rotorua/
Smelt the sulpher smelling air, went to the Rotorua musuem (which could be mistaken for the Woolacombe Bay hotel!) saw the iconic bowl players on the green, saw bubbling mud pools everywhere.
Gisbourne:
Beautiful city on the East coast, streets lined with Palm trees. wished we could have stayed longer.
Napier:
Photos : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/napier/
Art Deco city of the World- nearly every building has art deco esque designs, there is even an art deco weekend coming up where cinemas show 1920 films, have balls and drive around in old cars. There is “Bertie” the Art deco man who walks around Napier in full kit (unfortunately we only heard this and didn’t see him). Road out to Hastings was lined with beaches on one side and winerys on the other.
Wellington:
Lovely scenery driving from Napier to Wellington, mountains flanking the road, Upper Hutt road was interesting. Cor blimey it’s windy here in Wellington! Only had a brief wander around Wellington as we arrived late and left early. Saw huge amounts of public art all over the city, men chainsawing concrete in parks to create more sculptures. Apparently there is a life size cave troll and winged Nazgul hanging over a building somewhere. But no pizza shops! Want to visit the impressive museum and watch Lord Of The Rings again! (There is a cinema here that will always show it) Haven’t seen any of the film sets yet either- there are a few around Wellington including Rivendell. We went across the Cooks Strait on the ferry in the morning, beautiful views across to Wellington the “Garden City”.
Picton:
The entry point to the South Island. Went through the Marlbrough sounds which were stuning, all huge mountains, turquiose sea and sandy white beaches. Drove up the Queen Charlotte Drive (the car only just managed this feat!) which gave spectacular views over the sea and sounds.
Nelson:
Photos : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/nelsonlakes/
A very nice little city, on the seafront. Is home to the “One ring” which I couldn’t find….grrr. Swam in the Tasman sea off the coast of Nelson, found a gorgeous beach called Cable Bay, had takeaways! Bought a new camera- both of ours are now dead! Went for a long 2 day walk around the Nelson National Park, stayed in a backcountry hut. (got blisters….and lost my sunglasses!) Met up with Zoe.
Abel Tasman National Park:
Photos : http://www.kitjunkie.org/albums/v/travelling/nz/abeltasman/
Andy should be writing a more detailed account of this, but for the moment, Zoe, Andy and myself kayaked for 3 days in the beautiful National Park- all sandy beaches, tiny coves, seals, warm water, compost toilets, blue penguins, sacadas (bloody noisy and very ugly beetles) wood pigeons, impossibly tight kayak skirts, massive amounts of kayaks on otherwie empty beaches, water taxis making waves, 4 year old children making us laugh, pumping water, nappy rash and boil in the bag food.
On our last day in Taupo (it was raining- HARD!) we went to Huka Prawn Farm- sounds rubbish but it was one of the most hilarious things we’ve done so far! They have made a simple prawn farm into a huge place, eveything has a prawn embellished on it or a cast iron prawn or you can buy prawn t shirts etc everywhere! Shawn the Prawn (a giant pink prawn) guides you round. We went on a guided tour of the facililties, fed baby prawns which was very funny (they felt like tiny spiders crawling over your arms!) then we could go fishing for the larger prawns (they were Mayalsian Prawns- around 15cm long! The clever thing about this farm is that their neighbour the thermal water power station wasted heat heats up the water just enough for the prawns to live.).
We collected our bamboo fishing lines and off we went with ice buckets in case we caught some. In only a few minutes I had caught my first massive prawn, unfortunately I was so excited that I threw it across the gravel (missing the ice bucket completely) and he sat there for quite a while. We tried to pick him up, but as he was still very much alive he keep jumping and twitching- very tricky to get hold of! After much hilarious laughter (15 mins!) Andy braved it and after a few attempts got the blooming thing into the bucket- it didn’t die straight away either- but jumped out of the bucket in Andys’ face. V funny! In the end I was becoming a bit of a natural at catching the whoppers (caught 4 altogether!) Andy didn’t catch anything, said his equipment was rubbish.
We stayed in Rotorua that night as because we could take the prawns that we caught away with us we tried to cook them. However neither of us have ever cooked prawns before and we felt so guilty that these poor creatures were alive only a few hours previously and now they were bubbling away in a pan of water! Andy attempted to eat one, but as we didn’t know where to start (pulling legs, tentacles, heads off??) we decided to give up!
Thank you Becky (Ed’s Becky) because as soon as I saw the leaflet for Huka Prawn I remembered you had been and enjoyed it so that was the entire reason we went!
