Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc

Split Apple Rock

Another day another beautiful beach

Pukako

Nikau tunnel

Disembarked

Boarding the estuary barge

View from our bedroom

Barge, stranded at low tide

Our Abel Tasman walk is quite a contrast to the Queen Charlotte one. We are guided throughout our five days in the Abel Tasman National Park and we are part of a group of 22.

I have sought out moments of peace either at the front or the back of the group but I am not exclusively antisocial so I do fall in with others and chat from time to time.
Of the 22, 12 are a group who regularly walk together. They originally met in Newcastle, Australia. Most still live there. Janis and I reduce the average age a bit! Even allowing for the fact that both of us have recently celebrated birthdays.

Most of our morning was taken up with the practicalities of picking up 22 people from different locations in Nelson. I made up for my laziness in the morning by grabbing a swim at lunchtime before we boarded the boat to the start of our walk. The walk took us through varied forest and Janis and I are doing our best to learn some more tree names. I was delighted with the number of Nikau Palms and particularly the Nikau tunnel (see photo).

We were taken across the estuary to the replica homestead in a barge which was good fun (I contemplated swimming but decided against – as we saw two sting rays during the crossing, and given my recent history with rays, I was quite pleased with that decision.

I found time for a second swim before supper. The estuary is challenging, there are lots of sandbanks. Tomorrow I think I’ll walk beyond the bar to the sea proper rather than continuing to challenge myself with a shallow catch and pull. Though Dan would have been proud.

Janis and I had very interesting dinner companions, including a nuclear physicist turned philosopher who asked me what my daughter, and the lovely Bradley, think our obligations to the 90 million refugees currently under the auspices of the UN should be.