The Wilsons team who run the guided walks in Abel Tasman National Park are quite incredible. A superb breakfast, including the best porridge I’ve had outside the UK was laid on for us this morning and an amazing DIY selection for a picnic lunch – I’ll remember to take my camera down tomorrow morning – the jelly beans were incredible colours.
We had a mixed walk of estuary and forest this morning. I got my best ever fantail photo and really enjoyed stalking the pied and variable oystercatchers – less successfully.
The steam engine was deposited in the forest after a fairly treacherous trip by boat and then across the sand, over planks, pulled by horses. It was used to extract tannin from bark but, at one horse power, was not really up to the job. It was in the clearing with the steam engine that we saw the rather vicious plant with the spikes under its leaves. Apparently called a bush lawyer because once it has hold of you it will not let you go until it has drawn blood.
After lunch Janis and I lazed around at Meadowbank Homested and eventually I stirred my stumps for a swim. I half waded half swan across the estuary and then walked over the sand dune into the Tasman sea. A gentle test of the current suggested that I would be wise to swim against the incoming tide which was hard work. When I turned round I whizzed happily back into the estuary and over the shallower bits back to the lodge, shower and supper.
Natasha's minigap 
More fantastic images. Thank you for sharing them. I think you will be as fit as Wonder Woman by the time you come home! Are there any nasties in the water- crocs, exotic parasites etc? Or is it all pretty benign – spiky lawyer plants notwithstanding.
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I’ve managed to avoid any. There are some salps, sting rays, the odd jellyfish but so far so glorious. It’s the mozzies and the sandfly who’ve had it in for me.
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