Cleopatrah Pools and more kayaking

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Have an amazing sleep on the boat, and manage not to bump my head on the ridiculously low ceiling when wake up, by putting my hand on the ceiling – so when I go to site up, I look at my hand and remember why it is there!

Have a nice breakfast of toast and cereal on the boat, and get Rochelle and I get dropped to the shore at 9am. We are both have the morning free, and start our kayaking this afternoon, so we go on one of the walking trails to see the Cleopatra Pools. It’s a nice walk through the forest, and good to get a comparison and see the park on foot, but I am very glad to have a change and admire the beauty by kayak. We reach Watering Cove, the bay where meet our kayak guide - Tori, at lunchtime, and he arrives within 10 minutes of us – perfect! It’s only Rochelle, myself and Tori this afternoon and we have a great time kayaking out to more tiny islands, spotting a few seals and birds, then over close to the golden sand shores, exploring the turquoise waters of caves and lagoons. By 4pm we are back to the start point of the national park, where I started from in the water taxi yesterday, and have kayaked the whole coastline back – what a way to explore such a naturally amazingly beautiful area! We then head back to base in the van, where I enjoy a nice hot shower, and sit and chat to the owners of the company before my bus comes at 5.20pm to take me back to Nelson.

In Nelson, I check back into the hostel – they are quite used to my face now, coming in, staying a night, swapping things over, then heading out again for a few days. Though tonight will be my last, as I head to Picton tomorrow, which is a shame as I have really enjoyed Nelson, the surrounding area, and the hostel, it has such a friendly relaxed atmosphere, I wo0uld even go as far as saying it’s a pleasure to stay in….and no, it’s not because they give you free hot chocolate pudding at 8pm every night….though it does help!

I do a full repack, chat to people in the hostel again, some of which comment on my tan change, after being away for two days…my golden colour I had from Australia has returned after the stunning sunshine kayaking.

When we were all out hiking in the Nelson Lakes, we discovered that David’s birthday is a day before mine, on the 12^th April, and such we decided we must go out and celebrate and some point. And over the chocolate pudding, a bunch of us decided tonight was the night! So we quickly changed from chocolate pudding and green tea, to scotch. Don’t think I have ever drunk scotch before but after a few sips it went down quite nicely. After a few drinks and it nearing 10.30pm, we all went to get changed, and when we returned, an elderly Japanese man who could speak very little English, who also staying in the hostel, started a Japanese tea ceremony with all of us. It was an amazing experience, and we were totally immersed in ceremony, with the men shown and then taking it in turns to prepare the tea…following the strict rituals of cleaning the bowls, mixing, preparing and then we were all shown how to drink it properly, and pass it along, turning the bowl in the correct method. It was a real honour to experience this, a thing that money just can’t buy! After this and acclimatising back to reality of being an a hostel etc, we all headed out on the town, having to settle on karaoke night, as it was the only bar open due to end of season. Luckily the drinks, great company and rather amusing performances by people made the night such fun.

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