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Other entries in Abel Tasman National Park

Kannst Du Kayak?

Today we got up really early (about 5.15am) to get ready and catch the bus to Abel Tasman National Park.  The bus took about an hour to get there but I don't remember much of the journey as I fell asleep.  We checked into the kayak shop and had some tea.  We then drove off to the park and put the kayaks from the trailer onto the shore.  Kayaks are what we would call canoes, although these were bigger ones with two seats and a rudder.  Kiwis call open boats canoes - I'm confused about this!

Kayaking was great fun, the weather was a bit overcast but warm and the sea was so still that it seemed like a lake. What was better was that the only people about seemed to be the 5 of us on the trip and our 2 guides.  We moored up on two beaches, firstly for some tea and cake, and secondly for some sandwiches.

We saw a young seal in the clear water by one of the islands we visited.  The paddle back to the shore was knackering and really made my arms ache.  The tide had gone out so far that a special tractor came to pick up the kayaks.  After unloading all our gear we drove back to the kayak centre and they very kindly made us some tea before our bus arrived!

The title of this entry is dedicated to the 3 other people on our trip who were german.  They didn't understand the word 'stoat' when the guides were explaining that the stoat which was introduced to kills rabbits (which were introduced to shoot) actually kill native birds and kiwis.  NZ has no native mammals apart from 2 species of bats - hence the evolution of weird bird varieties to fill gaps - such as the kiwis.

We couldn't find stoat in their Anglo-Deutsch dictionary but we found weasel which turned out to be Wiesel - which amused me greatly!

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