starting the South Island

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After National Park I got the bus to Wellington. I wouldn't really recommend travelling by bus in New Zealand by public transport. The bus was fine but the timings aren't great. Anita & I planned to get a bus from Taupo to National Park but there are only 2 buses a day so we missed that and decided to hitchhike instead. This was act a much better plan as we got picked up within about 5 mins and got dropped off exactly where we wanted to go, and saved $30 perfect!

Wellington seems like a really nice city. I only spent one day here and then got the ferry to the South Island. The ferry passes through Queen Charlotte Sound. The walk around this is one of New Zealand’s Great Walks, so we got to see quite a lot of it from the ferry even. A sound is a flooded glacial Valley and so is really steeped sided very picturesque.

I joined the Stray bus to travel around the South Island, (it’s like Kiwi Experience but a different tour bus, stereotyped as being a bit older/more mature??! hmm!! No it was def a wise choice, admittedly it took me a long time to decide between them but it was worth the deliberation as I don't think I would of like Kiwi at all. Ok this is a generalisation but most of the people seem to be on the bus for a piss up rather than to see New Zealand!).
We drove through Marlborough (a big wine growing region) to Nelson. The bus schedule was not to stay overnight here but as the weather was pretty bad I decided to stay a few nights here as going to the next stop of a National Park in the rain was not overly appealing.

I have managed to send all of the photos from Wellington to here home without keeping a copy, quite careless and I def hope the CD doesn't get lost in the post now...

In Abel Tasman National Park we stayed at a farm in Marahau just on the edge of the National Park. Not the best facilities but we could walk into the park from there so it was v convenient.
The park is best viewed from the sea as its coastline is the most impressive bit so I did a kayak trip my first day there. The weather was pretty bad, the water was a lot warmer than the air and the waves were up to about 1.5m! By the end of the day it felt worth it (after I'd had a nice hot shower..) but when we stopped for lunch I was thinking I wouldn't be able to make it any further. We seemed to go about 3m forward and then the waves would take us 2m back, quite frustrating.

The next day I went for a walk along the coastline with a Swedish girl, Anna. We got a water taxi up the coast to Bark Bay and walked back to Marahau, about a 7hour walk. The weather was really good and so was a really lovely walk.

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