I want to live in an oooorange woooorld...

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Ok, hope you're comfy because I have a lot of catching up to do with you! I know I said I'd put a pic of Karlene Jean on the last blog, but I completely forgot! Oops.. and I don't have my memory card right now because we are getting CDs made.. yes, I've already filled 2 SD cards! So, be patient dear friends.. the pics are coming soon!

Alright... So... we were preparing to leave Wellington and head to the South Island. Eliza and I split up for the day to get some things done. I met back up with her at the hostel a little later and saw that she'd made a new friend. Noa, from Israel. How she meets a Noam and a Noa both from Israel, I still don't know. We're talking (well sort of, Noa is kind of out there)and I realize she has now booked a ticket on the ferry.. with us. Eliza then tells me that Noa overheard her talking about taking the ferry the next day and proceeded to invite/tell Eliza she needed a ride and could she have one with us. I imagine it (according to Elizas description) it going a little like this...

E: Oh yeah we booked a ferry and are going to the South Island tomorrow (said to some random)
Noa (coming out of nowhere): You take ferry? I go wit you? You take me too on ferry?
E: blank stare
Noa (busy pulling up the website): You help me. What time you go? I no find right ferry.
E helps the poor soul out and books the ferry. What a kind person! 😊

As we are talking, we tell her she needs to meet us the next day at 12:45 so we can get to the ferry by 1. She feels as though this is way too early and that we will have to sit there for 15 minutes. Well, duh. So, I, in a round about way, remind her that we are leaving at 12:45, and if she would like a ride she would need to meet at sed time as well. Done. She does. We part ways for the evening - no telling where she went or how she got there. We meet the next day as planned. She has a huge suitcase, but that's it. Remember that Eliza packed for 3 years and has 2 big bags and 2 bookbags. I have a huge backpack and a bookbag. All our camping gear. The trunk is full. The backseat of Karlene is our kitchen. We manage to push it over and make just enough room for Noa and her huge suitcase. Not until we started driving did I realize just how little room she had. All I could see in the rearview was her suitcase and all I could see from my side mirror was her head, or dread, I should say.

Noa was an interesting little bird. She told us how she loved colored sunglasses and her favorite pair were orange.. because she loves seeing/living in an "oooorange woooorld". She wore black military boots, mismatched socks, knit pajama looking pants under huge brown cargo shorts, a brightly colored sweatshirt, and our favorite article of clothing... a peterpan shirt. Not a shirt with peterpan on it (that would make sense).. a green shirt, with all the edges jaggedly cut. A shirt that had to have come from a costume store. There is no way it couldn't have. It was even the slinky kind of costume material. All of this complete with a "hairdo" consisting of 2 dreads. Short blonde tipped hair, brown underneath and out from the most random spots on her head hung two dreads. Two. One was even bejeweled. One came from just above her temple region in the front and one from the back right/middle of her head. Bizarre and every word that's relatable, but she was nice as could be. The funniest image I have of her is driving down the road and watching that one dread dance in the wind as she is being smushed by her own suitcase!

After laughing uncontrollably inside our heads all the way to the ferry, we made it. Karlene Jean took to that ferry as if she already knew what to do. We drove her right in and hopped right out. Now, this was the part where we didn't know what Dreadi was going to do. Oh yeah, Noa is now Dreadi. Seeing as she only has two dreads, we thought it was appropriate. 😊 lol. We were unsure of pretty much everything she did. The ferry itself was awesome. We took the InterIslander ship and it was massive. I don't understand how those things float. Anyway, we cruised out of Wellington and on through the Cook Strait. Sailboats were everywhere. There we were slowly cruising by these huge cliffsides over the amazingly clear and greenish blue water. I felt like I was on a mixture of a boat, plane, and train. We walked out to the front and watched the mountains fade into the background. When walking from either side, you could feel the boat hit the waves. Every other step kind of took you up or down with it. At one point, we were worried Dreadi was going to get sick because she got dizzy and needed to sit. The ferry takes just over 3 hours. In the process we met an American man who moved here 4 years ago and hasn't left. After talking for a while, he goes "are you three together?" of course referring to Dreadi. Was he serious? Eliza quickly explained the confusion. haha

Before landing, I guess, on the South Island, or maybe you say docking? I don't know.. either way, before we got there we had to cruise through the Marlborough Sounds (an extensive network of sea-drowned valleys created by a combination of land subsidence and rising sea levels). Yes, I googled. 😊 Whatever they are, they were beautiful. I know I keep using that word, but it's difficult to come up with another one, because that's just what they were, beautiful. We reached the tiny town of Picton, which is alive solely because of the ferry companies. We all headed back to Karlene, who did great mind you, and drove right off the ship. Now, what to do? What to do with ourselves? but more importantly, what to do with Dreadi? She soon spoke up from underneath her suitcase and said "I feel like doing something weird" Now, I knew if Eliza and I even remotely made eye contact I would lose it. We were like robots, faces straight forward, scared to ask what might possibly be considered weird to Dreadi. She informed us that she wanted to find a green grassy spot to sit and wait for a ride. Ok. That was good. I let her know that if she saw a spot that caught her eye to let me know and I would certainly drop her off to sit on it. That grassy spot didn't show up for a while. We kept trucking along and out of nowhere pops Dreadi again.. "how bout we stop for a donut and coffee" she says. You have to remember that we have just left the town and there is absolutely nothing around us. There are some random road signs along the way that have coffee cups on them, which must have triggered something in her head and now she wanted a donut. Eliza and I look at each other, ESP, and keep going. We were on a mission to get somewhere, anywhere, before dark. Dreadi did not pick up on this. We then had to have the conversation that almost sent me out the window. We tried to explain to her that we wanted to get to a hostel about 2 hours away. She thought this was an incredibly far distance, but was on board with whatever. Which didn't make it any easier on us, because of course neither of us could dump her out. She could not understand the fact that the town we were headed to was 2 hours away. Eliza tried to explain this probably 4 or 5 times, each time, making me more and more crazy. It was as if she all of a sudden left her body sitting in our car and took her brain to ooooorange wooooorld. Finally, a breakthrough! She got it. Whew! We made our way into the next biggish town, called Nelson. Convincing her it was a great place, seeing as how we'd never been, but it worked nonetheless. We decided to drop her off at the I-site where she could get a plethora of info. She had never heard of an I-site and did not want to go there. We drove there anyway and of course, it was closed. We drove around until we found a hostel. She gets out to see if there are beds available and to our own surprise.. there was! Dreadi was now leaving us. IT was bittersweet. We tried to snap a quick photo, so make sure to check it out and spot the dreads. hahaha, yes, we have lost our minds. Still, we wonder what ole Dreadi might be doing and who she's latched herself onto now. We just know we will run into her again... perhaps and hopefully... in oooorange woooorld.

We stopped for groceries and made our way up to the cute little town of Motueka. It had lights dangling crisscross along the main street, which we couldn't decide were a year round thing, or just for Christmas.. either way, we liked it. We stayed at probably the worst hostel yet, Hat Trick Backpackers. We had our own room, which was nice, but everything else was not good. The showers, the kitchen, the bathroom, the smell in our room, you get the point. It was only good for a nights sleep. We woke up, went to the local market, and found the I-site to plan our day. It was a gorgeous day and then as we were thinking of booking a trip, down came the rain. We were planning a hike in the Abel Tasman National Park along the Abel Tasman Coast Track. This is a super popular thing to do and have heard from just about everyone that we had to do it. As it rained and rained some more, we decided to postpone until the next day. We went ahead and booked the trip though. We were to be taken by watertaxi to the top of the track, spend two nights camping, all the while hiking our way back to Karlene Jean. We knew we would need to be up early and the track was about 30 minutes up the road. It was late now and we couldn't decide what to do. We only needed a place to sleep for about 6 hours. We hated to pay for a hostel when we wouldn't even be there that long. We drove around, up to Marahau, over to Kaiteriteri and finally agreed it would be best to sleep in the car at the foot of the track. (I love freaking you people out like this, I know you hate it, but it's so fun!)

We parked, loved our little spot then reality set hit, dang that reality! We wanted to cook our last dinner before "hitting the trail" haha. We drove back to the hostel, talked to the people and discovered that we could stay at a much cheaper price. So we did.. happy now? 😊 However we wouldn't be staying in rooms with beds, we would be staying in a "large tent" with 6 beds, which we found ironic. It was basically a big tent with 3 dividers, 2 beds in each. We picked the last "room" and zipped our stuff inside. Naturally, we were a bit worried about what these "campsites" were going to look like for our next two nights. So, we started our way up the track to find the first campsite. It was only a twenty minute walk, checked it out, were good with it and made our way back for dinner, stopping along the way for a quick walk on the beach. Dinner was made, eaten, and we were off to sleep. It was quite cold in this tent so we brought our little hot bottle warmers, filled them to the brim with boiling water and shoved them to the foot of our beds. It made me kind of sad, because I really wanted and kind of pretended it was Twig snuggling on my cold toes. 😊 that little cutie.. miss her.

We were both sound asleep, until I heard an awful noise. It was a zipper being unzipped right behind my head. I didn't want to move, but had to, I had to go to the bathroom. (as Dreadi would say.. I needed to wee!) I saw that Eliza wasn't in her bed and figured she had gotten up to go as well. As I slinked my way out of the "3 room tent" I scared myself and her to death. She was on her way in as I was on my way out. We crashed, laughed, and were taken aback by the stars. Only once before in my life, in Mozambique, have I seen the stars look this amazing. Millions and millions upon billions. I was never good at astronomy, so I don't officially know, but I have supposedly been shown the Milky Way (thanks Gray!) and I believe this was it again. The stars are funny here because they are upside down from the view we see at home. Orions Belt and the Seven Sisters (the only constellations I know and can actually spot) are both flipped around. It's weird to be on the other side of the world. 😊 We gazed at them for a few minutes in awe as the cold set in.. off to "wee" and back to bed. Indescribable.

We woke up really early to get in one last good, hot shower. Ate a huge breakfast and went to meet the watertaxi. I will never forget yelling out to Eliza "Hey, do we need this bread or Museli?" the look and answer no written across her face and the taxi man yelling back "yes, bring both!" - so we did. A tractor took the boat from land and dropped us in the sea. We sort of felt like we were back in the "sip" minus the whole boat part. 😊 There were six of us being carted along the Abel Tasman. Amazing, finally, weather. The first two people were dropped at a beautiful beach where they were going to kayak. The water is gorgeous. Clear as ever. We move along, speeding past beach after beach, stunning scene after the other. We drop the next couple off, two girls, they were going to hike the rest of the way down. Now, it was just us and the boat man. We kept going and going. We pulled slowly up to this island to see a few fur seals. They were cute to look at, but horrible to smell. As we kept going up, we were able to see some.... wait for it.... penguins!! They were swimming super fast in the water and it was sort of hard to see their true cuteness, but we saw them, and we liked them!

Eventually, we made it to our drop off spot, Totaranui. As we were getting out, the boat man said good luck and reminded us that it would take him only 40 minutes to get back to Marahau, as it would take us 3 days! It didn't matter. We were ready. We started the trek down to our first campsite, about 45 minutes away, set up our tent, and were back on the trail, back to the start. We heard the top part was the most beautiful and we needed to see it on our first day. It made a world of a difference walking without our packs. We walked for a good 3 hours up to Anapai Bay. Again, beautiful. As we laid on the beach, we began to get hungry and discuss what we actually brought with us. The conversation was quick. This is when we realized how dumb we are.. yes, we are just now figuring this out, but now we know, and it's official. We discussed just how little we had/prepared for this trip. We began to ration out, in our minds, our food. In the meantime, we also realized we didn't have any sort of utensil. So, along with our Dummies for New Zealand book, we are coming out with a dual edition: Camping for Dummies. Dumb, maybe, but we've got some brains left yet. shells now = spoons and really good ones I might add - they also double as a knife, which we like to call a spife. We got up, made our way dragging back to the campsite. I never in my life thought I would ever hear Eliza Hegwood say she didn't want to walk anymore, but I tell you people, it happened. Our legs felt like Jello by the time we got home. We had been hiking all day.

Dinner was a wonderous delight. Apples (sliced with our new spife), peanut butter, and museli, all atop a slice of bread. (yes, the museli and bread we almost didn't bring) For dessert we had our daily alottment of one nut and yogurt bar each. We were quite pleased. We were so tired we went to bed before the sun even set. We, and one other guy we never talked to, but called "Whitey" (bc he was blindingly white, duh) were the only ones camping there that night. Day 2 - we were up and at em with Whitey. Still, no words were exchanged, a simple knod of the head was enough. The track is nothing but amazing. However, after hours upon hours of walking we started to become a little jaded. If that makes any sense. It was ALL so amazing and so beautiful that you kept hoping to turn a corner and something to blow your mind, but it was ALL mindblowing. Don't get me wrong, mindblowing how crystal blue and clear the water was crashing on the jagged rocks just beneath us - how you walked from beach, to forest, to desert, to lagoon, to cold damp overgrowth - repeat - but at the same time, hours upon hours of walking with what felt like 50 lbs on your back... jaded.

We stopped several times and took a thousand pictures, even detours to see what was around every bend. We wondered how many people must've slipped and fallen who knows how far down. Most people pick a piece of the track, hike a while, kayak a while, and call it a day, get picked back up and head home... not us, we were hardcore. 😊 We would pass clean, full, pack-less people all day long. We actually even saw this couple with what looked like their week old baby. Thankfully we passed them on the side we did because I was so shocked/appalled that I seriously walked straight off the track and into the rock wall. Eliza was behind me and out loud she said "oh my god" and screamed in a loud and shocked way. What if he slipped and dropped that child? There would be no one to help them. Phones don't work out there. We worried about that baby, and still do. What are they thinking? haha, idiots. At some points (most points) you are wlaking on a path that is one trip or slip away from death. I know that sounds awful but it's really the only way to describe it. I wish you could see distance in photos, but they just don't do it justice. A little further down the track wouldn't you know we ran into Whitey, even got him to take a picture of us, what a nice guy. 😊 We were kind of in a hurry to get to this crossing because you can't cross if the water is too high. We had it all mapped out. 2 big lagoons (which by the way, who knew really existed? we thought they were only in fairytales, had a creature in them, and were black). It felt like we were walking across a soggy desert, which I know defeats the whole desertness, but you follow me. It was so big from one side to the other that my brain has still, yet to comprehend it all filling up with water.

The ocean was, remember I'm a terrible estimator, about 4 football fields away. We couldn't even see it until we were out of the lagoon and back on the beach. mindboggling. We made it across, but still had another lagoon somewhere ahead of us. We got there, kind of in a pinch thinking we weren't going to make it. Neither of them were anything to worry about. After people worried us so much about them, there wasn't even anything to them. Which, I guess, is the best case scenario. 😊 We kept on trucking ad finally made it to our home for the night, Medlands Beach. We were enjoying a nice quiet beach almost to ourselves. Medlands is a small beach only about 30 yards long. No, I don't know why I measure in football fields either, but you get where I'm goin don't ya? 😊 Anyway, more and more people started filing in. There were only about 6 camp spots, but with now about 20 people. As usual, we kept to ourselves - ignoring the weirdos. 😊 All until and unfortunate event, we will forever be blinded by, took place.

We were lying there in a daze as most people were sitting on drift wood talking amongst themselves. Peaceful. Thena couple probably in their late 80s stroll in. I'm kind of watching them out of the corner of my eye and it was like a trainwreck, we could not look away. The man drops down to his whitey tighties and doesn't stop there. You only imagine the rest, we actually saw it. Everybody on the beach saw it, and it was horrible. He did, however, manage to put on a pair of shorts and met his lady as the water as she stood there in her bra and panties that looked about as old as her. Again, we couldn't look away, any of us. The beach was full on staring at them.. and they didn't care. After a quick swim, they proceeded to walk up, down, and around the beach. They might as well have been throwing beads! Now, comes the grand finale. When he changed the first time his back was to the crowd. I guess for a finishing touch he decided to turn towards everyone, dry himself, and put back on his day clothes. Just as everyone is realizing what just happened and trying to regain vision, a huge yacht pulls up - almost knocking us out with it's ladder/plank thing - and the people file onboard. Yes, even the happy couple. As they pull off, we could not stop laughing. You must imagine the awkward air on the beach and the look on everyones face. The "act natural" look failed miserably for all of us! After watching a few more waves crash in, we sat for supper. Shells working wonders yet again. We made our beds (with simply sleep laid out on top) and sat back by the water a bit longer. We knew we had a long day ahead tomorrow and were tired form the day before. Second night in a row, we were in bed before sunset. haha.

OK- I know this has been a long one, and I hope it has entertained you for a while, but I have to run right now... we are making homemade pizza tonight! I will pick up later.... love and miss you!!

kat

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Photos

Dreadi going off to ooorange wooorld
yes, sadly, this is the only pic I have of her... but look closely and you can see the bi-dreads! :) miss her! haha

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Wellington Harbour

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first camp site in Abel Tasman

Motueka
Hey little guy

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warning: 5 person maximum on bridge

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I saved its life.

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I know waaaaaaay too much about this man! Yep... he's the one!

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tent in Marahau before Abel Tasman

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getting dropped off in Totaranui via watertaxi - 3 days hiking ahead

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nothing like a Museli sandwich

Comments

[Jill]

sounds amazing
your trip so far sounds amazing! As does the stars in Mozambique, gutted I missed them lol. Glad the weather is nice, its snowing here in Scotland, Keep having a fab time, and i'll email you soon. stay safe, love Jill xxx

[R.P.]

amazing!
I can't wait to see the pictures from the trail! It is all sounding so amazing and straight out a movie :) (Sorry you had to see "it"!!) Can't wait to hear more. We love you!!

[Miss Linda / Mama]

MK---- That was so extremely funny ---- I can just see Eliza talking to Dreadie ------ Whenever y'all get home, you will have so much to laugh about. BTW ---- when is that going to be ???? Margaret is very sad without her !!

[Sue H.]

Living Large!
Hey, Girls--Loved reading your latest post. Y'all are having more fun! Please tell me there's no photographic evidence of the beach event. Hug Eliza for me. Love, Sue

[mksharpe]

Hey!
I am so glad you like the blog! haha I have loved your country... what an absolutely amazing place. I was confused at first because my sisters name is also Nina and I thought it was her at first . :) How funny. Anyway - thanks for keeping up with me! Can't wait for my first hot Christmas, by the pool! :) Merry Christmas to you!!

[Dad]

blogalicious
Great blog.....when I was 25, your mom, me, Nina and John Marc went on a trip the John Deere combine plant in Iowa. I think that's the farthest we had all been away from home ....ever!! I love you. Have a great. Call if you need anything........Dad

[Ashley]

Spife
MK, I LOVED reading about your adventure... Dreadi was really funny/scary to read about. THis trip is awesome.. I thought about you yesterday morn because they showed New Zealand's New Year's celebration on tv... I thought it was cool that y'all were in 2010 about 24 hours before we were! ok... deep thought... I've enjoyed reading your blog (and especially Mrs. Linda's posts) Love!