Blogs from Marahau, Abel Tasman National Park, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 8

Pancake Rocks After leaving Franz Josef our bus took us further up the West Coast and eventually to Nelson. On the way we stopped at a couple of places - the best being the Pancake Rocks! Nicely eroded rocks in the shape of stacks of pancakes - hence the name! Will stick some pics up for you to see... Abel Tasman National Park Nelson itself was quite nice - the most populated place we'd been to for a while! There are shops and everything! We stayed for two nights before heading for The Abel Tasman National Park... it didn't take long to get there and we soon arrived in Marahau where we were staying in a 'luxury dorm tent'!! Basically a semi-permanent tent with beds! It was one of the nicest places we've stayed! The weather ... read more

Nearing arrival to the South Island on calm seas, via the 'InterIslander' ferry, is a beautiful introduction to the more relaxed and arguably (and perhaps unbelievably) more scenic southernly half of New Zealand. We smoothly cruised through the Marlborough Sounds to get to the port of Picton before disembarking. The Malborough Sounds are previously hilly areas that had been flooded thousands of years ago by the rising sea, leaving waterways and islands that are low in population and very picturesque. We stayed in amongst the Sounds for our first night before heading south. You really need a boat or at least a week, a tent and a kayak to make the most of the Marlborough Sounds. This would have really appealed to us if we'd had more time, and a tent, oh yes, and a kayak. ... read more

Date visited: 23-25 January We drove a further few hours west hugging the coastline and arrived at our camp/hostel accommodation a few miles inland from the North West Abel Tasman park. The lodge was nestled in thick bush on a hill totally away from it all - we were chuffed to bits to find we were the only campers there where we could choose our own pitch amidst the extensive grounds. The sound of crickets , wild turkeys! and dogs filled the night air - it all just felt so peaceful. This proved to be an excellent base as we were escaping the tourist crowds and campers found on the coast but still close enough to commute to the famous Abel Tasman park. We checked out the coastal track the next day which was a windy ... read more

After Christmas in Blenheim, we spent a few days in Mapua at Duncan's parents. His Dad has just got a new boat, so we went out for a trip in Abel Tasman, which was great. We stopped for lunch on one of the many beaches and then headed out for a spot of fishing. I was VERY excited to catch a fish (the first one caught in the new boat) :-) We were back on the farm at the weekend, and I had my first ride in a tractor - it was a very civilised experience - I'd gone to take Duncan some lunch, and had made use of the picnic set we got from his sister for Christmas, so we were sat in the tractor cutting grass and drinking squash out of picnic wine glasses ... read more

Vocabulary lesson for the day: Student's tan - the result of spending a good amount of time in the sun without a shirt but with a backpack on (sorry, no pictures). So we've been making our trip of the West Coast of the South Island and are almost through with it. From the glacier area, we drove along the coast and stopped in a town called Greymouth just for the day. We went on a tour of the Montieth's Brewery, which was a better tour than the Speight's one we did earlier - there were only 6 people on the tour and it covered more things - plus they have a really clever engineer working for them so many of their machines were pieced together from old trucks and other old machines. At the end we ... read more