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Published: April 4th 2009
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Nelson The One Ring
An Actual ring used in Lord Of The Rings!!!! First landing on the South Island and we drove to Nelson a small town in the North of the Island, we found a market had a look around but we managed to keep our wallets in our pockets and not buy anything. We also went and checked out where the rings from Lord of the Rings were forged and it was not Mount Doom it was a tiny little shop and workshop and everything in it was way to much money for humble travellers. But by far the best sight of the day was a Wearable Art Museum and Vintage Car gallery a strange combination for one ticket but Nibby was happy and Matty was happy. The Wearable Art was actually really really good lots of manikins dressed up in the most bizarre stuff ever. The Vintage car collection was equally cool with the range going right back to the earliest of cars up to the latest Ferrari's
Next day we were driving West when we heard on the radio there was a Wine & Food festival on about 5kms from where we were and that sounded just what we needed. It was pretty cool we managed to get a
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The Car and the World of Wearable Art Museum perch right at the front of the stage and hung out there listening to the various local bands topping up our sun tans and sampling the glorious food. We were very sensible and did not drink more than the legal limit a good job to because at the car park exit the police were breath testing everyone I think they caught lots of people.....
Then came the mighty Abel Tasman National Park and we set out on our 3 day adventure. The first day we loaded all our food and tent and clothes into our Sea Kayak and set off on the Ocean, during our days paddling we saw beautiful scenery and a few fur seal on the rocks. The last two hours of our voyage it started to rain pretty heavy which was not so great but it did make the sea pretty rough so that added a different dimension to the kayak. We arrived in our little port called Anchorage and set up camp in the rain and tried to warm up, we then decided to go for a short walk an hour each way to Cleopatra's Pool, once there we were delighted to see a small
waterfall that if you looked from the right angle you could work out why the place got its name. Matty jumped in the pool starker s and had a quick swim before deciding he could climb up and come down the slide looking part of the waterfall it was very funny have a look at the video. It was also very very very cold so there is no chance of seeing anything you shouldn't!!!!!! Nibby cooked an amazing Noodle soup with pouched eggs for tea once we reached camp. Yummy.
Day two we had to pack up and reload the Kayak, you really can fit a hell of a lot of stuff in them. We paddled up the coast stopping in lots of little isolated bays one of which we had all to ourselves so decided to break out lunch and only 5 minutes after that 3 tour groups paddled up and beached themselves in our bay, damn it. After lunch we paddled to Seal island where we saw lots of seals swimming which was really cool. Then after another long paddle we reached the end of the Kayaking and dumped our kayak on the beach and loaded all
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The flux capacator was missing!! of our stuff into the backpacks and started the walk to the campsite - I can honestly say we had way to much stuff and our tent weighed a stupid amount so the going was slow, after about 3 hours we reached camp and watched a cool sunset and fell asleep very quickly in the tent.
Day three in Abel Tasman National Park was also Matty's 26th Birthday and for breakfast Nibby cooked a gourmet instant chicken noodles.........The day itself was more walking and sight seeing the sun was out and about 25'c we hung out on several of the beaches on the walk and had lunch (well beans and sausages from the tin) on one of the isolated beaches. We finally reaching the beach where the boat was coming to pick us up from and we collapsed into a deep sleep nearly missing the last boat home!!!! Later that evening we went out to the local restaurant and had a great dinner steak, and a rack of lamb it tasted great!!!!
The following day was a great one. We went swimming with Seals at Tonga Island within the Abel Tasman N.P. We stopped at two different spots
Nelson WOW
Check out all the cool cars on the island at the first stop an adult female was playing with all the swimmers and came within touching distance of everyone. The second spot was a shallow sheltered rock pool area called the “nursery” where all the baby seals were able to practice swimming. They loved interacting with us humans and were constantly showing off, one or two definitely wanted to be seen and kept coming up to the camera. Check out the video its great!!!!
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