Dec. 32. Abel Tasman/Matueka

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WEll, haven't written in a while bc I was out Kayaking the abel Tasman Trek. Our group decided to do a 3 day tour through a company called MSK....this is where we were to do a two day kayak tour and a one day Hiking through the park.
Arriving to the MSK headquarters, we are soon faced with a problem...the office was telling us that we had to rent our own camping equipment (tents/cooking stove/utensils, sleeping matts, ect.) BUT the lady we had booked everything, 2 days earlier had told us that EVERYTHING WAS INCLUDED, we had asked her a million times if ALL (camping gear) was included in the pacakge.....well, it wasn't but somehow we managed to get it on "loan", which was good bc we had already payed alot of $$ for the whole trip. So, that night we spent the night in the camp ground...and the next day..at around 8:30 we got ready for the KAYAKING BRIEFING...how to be safe on the water, how to make an exit from the kayak, what to do in case of an emergency, how the spray skirts (a funny thing that you wear and wraps around the kayak to keep the sea water out----which u need bc the water there ius FREEZING), ect. Later, once we had everything in place, gear in the kayak....PS(ahem, the boys took some much more stuff than the girls, it was wierd! I was surprised we managed to get all our crap stuffed into those tandem kayaks.....So, the tractor took our boats out to the water, the tide was low, so we walked for ages to get to it all. Jumped into the boats....it was always hard for me to get the darn spray skirt wrappoed around the boat so I always needed assistance with it! Minutes later, our guide was taking us to our first distination point to have morning TEA ( a funny concept, I never have had morning tea)....the bEACHES were just amazing...golden sandy beaches, CLEAR SKIES (which was a first for me all this tim,e i've been in NZ...so I was a happy camer!)....at around, 3:30 our guides left us and we were on our own...scarry I thought...the whole time I was worried bc I kept thinking, do my friends really know how to read a map, well, we be ok, I really don't my group that well...but those worries soon dessipated. I thought, what the hell, one of the guys, Marco, was in the military back in Germany, I hope he knew what he was doing.
So at around 6pm we arrived to Onitahuti beach, were we set up camp...tons of people were there camping. After setting uip camp, I saw a girl in the distance coming towards our camp site...it was a girl I had met a day earlier in our hostel, the Sequia, back in Picton, and she was staying in the tent right next to ours. I'm glad she was there bc shes a fgunny girl....Caira from Auckland, funny as shit...she made me laugh the whole time...
The second day, by 10am we were out on sea kayaking. This was the huighlight of my trip, we got to stop at a SEAL COLONY, where we saw mamma sea lions and their baby calves...just amazing hearing them, seeing them frolic in the water!!! Just great! WE then arrived tired to our next camping beach, and the dark clouds were soon approaching and I thought we had to quickly set up our tents bc thats one thing i hated doing, setting up camp in the rain....so i quickly, jumped out of the kayak, ran to pick a spot, set up tent, and looked up at the sky and saw that the dark rainny clouds had left a clear blue sky.....im telling you, this weather in NZ is CRAZY and very unpredictable. But alas, everything was working out in the end. I got to walk around the beach for hours....one wierd thing though, eventhough the sun was blazing HOT, I was cold and had to sport around funny shorts and a sweater...dont know why i was cold, when everyone else was enjoying a dip in the cold ocean waters.
What else, that night we found a lil cave, we had to crawl to get to this and then we were rewarded with the oh so special GLOW WORMS.
Then everyone else went to bed and I stayed out on the beach at night talkking to a new zealander from Auckland, John. The night was just filled with stars...and the moon was just beaming with light, just incredible, and the sound of the waves crashing on the beach. Later on, going back to the camp site, I'm greeted by a lil hungry NZ'er possem...digging thru our food...that lil booger! We had left our food out (ps, kids dont do this while camping, nasty lil creatures come out in the night and take your food and shred everything into pieces).....and that lil crap head was just going at it...I shooed it off and decided to hang our food on the tree (which we all need to leran how to do!!!!!!!!). Crawkling into the tent, an hour later we were woken up by the torrential rains! Damn, just thought how everything was going to be soaken wet....and it was! Part of our sleeping bags and gear got wet...but oh well, what can you do.
After having breakfast that morning, we packed everything, put up the tents so that the water taxi could take our crap (tents, cooking stuff, sleeping bags, left over rubbish, ect)....and started our hike to Tutrinui. John came with us. 20min into the hike we stopped at this posh Eco lodge to have ourselves a good expensive snack...I had a delicious banana, passion fuit muffin and a hot chocolate....YUM!!!!! Then came Ciara, the NZ, she had c

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