abel tasman national park

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there are no roads to abel tasman so you have to get a boat. we travelled up the coast on a sea shuttle and were dumped off the boat to walk back for a few hours. we were in the middle of nowhere with pretty much no one else about. very peaceful and quiet.

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Photos

the day before we got to the park
horrible weather. we thought we were back in ireland!

a randomly coloured lake
luckily the rain and cloud passed so we could actually see more than 2 feet on front of us.

a poor one legged bird
on golden bay at the very tip of the south island just passed the abel tasman park

a random rock
on golden bay

our first glimpse of the park
at a disgraceful 8am! who gets up at that time when on holiday. its wrong.

the view from the boat
beaches and coves and hills with trees. thats pretty much it.

beach with trees
yep.... thats it.

chucked off the boat on an empty beach
no one about! i decided to make it my mission to find some friends.........

I tried to make friends with this duck
but he ran away.

I tried to befriend this star fish
not much craic out of it though. it just lay there. maybe it was dead. who knows.

we met a crab
but he just sat there too. maybe it was also dead.

we had to cross a wobbly bridge
it was like an indiana jones bridge over a scary river that looked like it had sharks or crocodiles in it! eek!

after several baking hours in the sun, our boat finally arrived to take us back
but it didnt even bother coming close. we had to wade out to it. what if there had been sharks near by!

Picton - back to civilization
our last view of the south island as we sailed back to the north island. sort of on the way home to ireland now. should only take us another 9months!