New Zealand South Island Nov 30 to Jan 11 -Part 1

We flew to Christchurch from Auckland instead of taking the ferry. It turned out to be a good idea since we never did make it all the way to the south end of the North Island!

The first leg of this journey had no rental car booked because we prebooked 7 consecutive nights of camping in Abel Tasman Park. We started at one end and ended at the other end so wouldn't make sense to have a car unless someone could drive it up for us! Car rental rates in New Zealand are very reasonable. One warning we received though is that insurance is not mandatory and many Kiwis don't carry insurance! Also, rental cars are not allowed on certain beaches because they get stuck and the tide comes in...oops!

When we arrived in Christchurch we changed our minds and got a car for a few days but didn't go very far. It rained quite a bit! We stayed at a Top 10 Holiday Park ( like KOA's I think) and upgraded to a cabin to dry out on the last day! It was definitely duck weather! Matthew spent a considerable amount of time following around a one-legged duck and videotaping how it walks!

Christchurch is a nice city (pop around 350,000) We explored downtown a bit and went to the botanical gardens (where Sarah took many nice pics of flowers) and cathedral. We found the first Starbucks we've seen since arriving in New Zealand! It just wasn't the same as the choices for coffee were 'flat white' and 'long black' just like everywhere else here. I still don't understand the difference between a flat white and a latte. Anyway you have to order coffee like that if you want milk in it. Rob has had a few black coffees since we got here because it took us a while to catch on!

Heading North to Nelson!

We hopped a bus Dec 3 to get to Nelson which is about 6 hours north of Christchurch. More narrow roads along cliffs. Sarah and I didn't enjoy the views that much from motion sickness. I had to run to a pharmacy on one of the stops (Kaikoura, a nice whale watching town) to buy some pills! I guess it helped that we took the cheap bus too!

Nelson was a nice town. Sort of a gateway to the northern parks so lots of outdoor stores and good restaurants. It's also known as the City of Trees.

The nice owners of the campground we stayed at in Nelson (actually it was another holiday park and we upgraded to a cabin again because of all the rain!) kept our extra belongings that we didn't want to take tramping since we would carry all our gear on our backs for the 7 days.

And off we went, with lots of backcountry type food - readily available in most grocery stores everywhere, especially Pak'n'Save!

Abel Tasman National Park. 7 Night Tramping the Coastal Track:

It rained on us for the first tramping day. We were pretty soaked when we arrived at the first campground. We were also the only ones staying there as it was just before one of the bigger ones. The beach was nice and it stopped raining a while after we arrived. A man came walking down the beach and offered to us to stay at his 'bach' (cottage) just a couple hundred meters down the beach. We declined since it stopped raining but wonder if we should have taken him up on it. First we were suprised that people own land in a national park but these are families that owned the land before the park existed. We walked down to take a look later and his place was bigger than our house!

We ended up having a good night on the beach but broke our campstove. Rob, the lucky one, went all the way back to the closest town the next day and was able to buy the part we needed! That was a big day for him!

Being too concerned about running the batteries down before the last day, I took way too few pictures on this tramp! The views were amazing and the campsites were all very nice. Well, except for the one with twigs and sand in the water. We had to treat our own water for drinking at a few of the sites.

There were a lot of kayakers on the trail as well as trampers. People have a variety of options as there are water taxis to some of the sites so you can do just a couple nights or you can have your pack sent up so you don't have to carry (sounded really good to us as our packs seemed heavy sometimes....especially when it rained). There are huts to stay in if you don't like tenting. The cost is per person so seemed too costly for the four of us to sleep in rooms full of other snoring, smelly trampers. We did stay one night in a hut when the park ranger insisted that our tent was inadequate for the amount it was raining. He was right!

All this fun and we hadn't discovered sandflies yet.....I would describe a sandfly bite like a mosquito bite but over and over again for about a week!

Some days we had to time our walking with the low tide as there were two places that could not be passed at high tide and a couple others that were longer if you had to take the high tide track...ya, call us lazy!

We learned abour estuaries as well since most of the tidal crossings were across an estuary. Matthew usually found some birds to annoy without trying since they nest and feed in these large sandy areas. The Oystercatcher was a favorite and we sometimes accidentally came between the parents and babies. They didn't like that!

The whole trip was 51 km. Great for the kids as we didn't go too far on any day. There was never any rushing and we stopped a lot to enjoy the wilderness and views! We are proud of the kids!

Well, I'm out of time for blogging. More on the South Island will follow later...stay tuned!