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Published: January 23rd 2021
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We don’t underestimate the freedom we have in NZ to travel around the country. Our thoughts and prayers are with friends and family around the globe that have had/are having/expect more lockdowns and those who have lost loved ones due to Covid-19. Stay safe, healthy and sane x
For my 40
th birthday we decided to tick off the Abel Tasman kayaking expedition that we’ve had on our list for years.
We were very blessed with amazing weather. Special thanks to my family who took the girls to the family batch for the week, they had a blast and didn’t even miss us!
We flew into Nelson from Auckland, wearing masks as per NZ flight regulations. It’s a short flight. We then hired a car and spent the night in Motekua.
We flew into Nelson, spent a night in Motekua and then the next day we went to Marahau to start our kayaking. Huge shout out to Kahu Kayaks, they were brilliant! After sorting out our stuff, dry bags and all, we packed our tent, cooking gear, sleeping gear, clothes etc, food into our 3 compartments of our double sea kayak. A quick refresher of paddling and we
were off. As we were in the National Park we had booked tent sites at DOC (Department of Conservation) sites. Another shout out, DOC doing an amazing job, native birds are flourishing and the camp sites had that back to nature feel ?
Day 1: We kayaked at a leisurely pace from Marahau to Akersten Bay. A beautiful, small beach with only 3 tent sites. What an amazing beach to start with. We felt we were in our own little paradise. We headed out to Pinnacle island to see some seals and then around the corner to pick some mussels from the rocks for a pre-dinner snack. Long drop toilets are not my fav, but they were all clean and perfectly fine. Water was at each campsite, but we had to boil, filter or treat it before drinking. Murray enjoyed getting out his aqua tabs again, a staple in his travels around the world.
The white sand beach, crystal clear water was breath-taking and you’d think you were in a tropical island, and then you swim ? ummm maybe its called paddling?! as it was FREEZING!! We are definitely spoiled for water temperature, from our time at Sri
Lankan, Kenyan, and European beaches.
Day 2: We kayaked from Akersten bay to Mosquito Bay. Mosquito bay is very tidal, beautiful at high tide, or carry your very heavy/full kayak for 200meters when the lagoon empty’s out. We managed to time it right, and even stopped in at Falls river and Frenchman harbour along the way, beautiful, still, crystal clear water, stunning rock faces, green bush filled with native bird song and cicadae’s chirping. We had flat calm weather, unfortunately in the afternoon high winds and swells started, that’s when Murray’s sister and brother-in-law joined us. There are water taxis around and they caught a water taxi with their kayak on board, kayaking from Anchorage to Mosquito bay to join us. Mosquito bay is the start of the marine reserve, so no more mussels.
Day 3: We kayaked from Mosquito bay to Onetahuti. The weather wasn’t great with our windiest day, I got a bit cold this day, with waves splashing us a bit on our paddle. We went to Tonga Island and saw some seals, which was very special/scary! We then went past Onetahuti to Shag Harbour hoping to see some baby seal nurseries, which weren’t there.
But still a beautiful harbour and a peaceful change from the wind and the waves. We then went back to Onetahuti exploring another harbour on the outgoing tide. Then set up camp at Onetahuti campsite, a bit bigger campsite and FLUSH toilets! What a stunning beach! A bit busier with the trampers/hikers now at the same camp. We still had a sea view/beach front camp site.
Day 4: We kayaked from Onetahuti to Anchorage farewelling the Guppies on the way. We kayaked to the Arches near Tonga Quarry to Falls river and then back to Bark Bay with them, a beautiful waterfall and bridge and had lunch on the sandspit. We then waved goodbye, heading to Torrent Bay and Anchorage harbour, we almost got up to Cleopatras pool, but with the outgoing tide, we were fast running out of water, so turned around and headed for camp. The wind had picked up and it was hard paddling around the point. Another very busy campsite with lots of trampers, kayakers, launches, sail boats and glampers/day trip people. This was our biggest day paddling 5 hours as we doubled back to drop off the Guppies to their water taxi. Thanks Guppies
for joining us ? we loved it!
Day 5: We kayaked from Anchorage to Marahau. This wasn’t too bad, 3 hours, we went slow, chilled and let the wind/tides carry us some of the way. We explored some more bays and a cave. We were picked up, unpacked our kayak, showered, bliss!! Then went to a nearby café with more mussels/prawns, yum! We then drove to Takaka and did the Te Waikoropupu Springs walk. We went to the Abel Tasman lookout, Abel Tasman a Dutch explorer ‘discovered’ NZ (although the Maori already inhabited it). Zealand is a place in the Netherlands, he named our country after. We managed to find a beach with water at low tide and enjoyed an early evening walk down the Tata beach.
We then drove back to Nelson to fly out, briefly catching up with Kevin G and family, and Peter and Sue Bryan. The Bryans were a huge part of Murray’s Mongolia days, his early overseas work life. Such a special time to see them briefly.
So far being 40 years old is pretty good ? our prayers for this year, are for the world to be rid of this terrible
pandemic and for friends and family to be able to travel more freely and safely.
Much love, Kia Kaha (stay strong),
Miriam and Murray
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