Day 90: Kayaking around Abel Tasman National Park‏

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Adventure is our middle name - today that translated into a 16km kayak trip around the national park. The three of us (plus Dave our guide) paddled the seas for a good four hours, with some beautiful stops along the way. We set off from the impressive sand spit at Bark Bay and our first stop was Pinnacle island to see the seal colony. There were a couple of seals sunning themselves on the rocks. We continued on to our lunch stop at Adele island (named by a French explorer, after his wife) and this was the best spot of the day. The beach was beautiful, clear waters and great views of the national park - plus the lunch provided was pretty tasty! We had a couple of other stops after lunch and our arms were certainly starting to tire! We also saw a penguin out at sea and lots of shearwaters (the elusive bird we never saw in Australia). I think Dave was pretty impressed with all of our kayaking skills as we got back to base really early! Bailey's bit: Bare with me for the brief history lesson.... Abel Tasman, the dutch explorer, was the first European to discover New Zealand back in the 1640's. Although he did discover the island he never set foot, as upon encountering the local Maori 4 of his crew were killed so he pulled anchor. Split apple rock is one of the main attractions of the area, a large boulder that has split down the middle and now sits in the middle of the bay for all to see! After our long day on the sea we treated ourselves to a large portion of fish and chips and a jug of beer/cider to soothe the muscles but to make sure we didn't overdo it we were in bed before 10!Daily mileage: 4 (am) I had an explore of the side roads I had seen the previous night but they amounted to nothing so finished off running a couple of loops of the sea front.4 (pm) after the advise of Dave our guide I tried to head towards Marahau, a village we saw on the kayak, however after running uphill for 2 miles I decided to turn back and try again when fresh in the morning!

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