Yay! Summer...

Seasons greetings from Brisbane. Loving the weather here! I was afraid I had gotten too used to the cold after 6 months in NZ, but I took to the heat like I had never left. Weather has been quite pleasant actually, around 27-28deg by day, and nice breeze in the arvo. Saw Ben yesterday at the airport, passing through from Bowen to Chch. He was loving the weather too!Decked out in a wife beater (aka singlet) and thongs (aka jandals/flipflops!). Wish we could move to QLD! Went to watch my brother play beach volleyball and I felt like a tourist, kookaburras and stuff in the gums, sandflies buzzing my ankles. Love it. Be great to go diving in the warm water too. Apparently water temp is a balmy 24deg on the Gold Coast. Anyway, just thought I'd say g'day, Merry Christmas and all the rest! better help mum with the roast and start getting ready for Midnight Mass....

Abel Tasman photos

Just outside Anchorage Bay

Anchorage

Rissa

Sarah

Cleopatra's Pool

Abel Tasman

I met up with Sarah in Nelson on the weekend and we headed over to Abel Tasman National Park for some sea kayaking and walking. What a top spot - emerald waters and spectacular boulders, not to mention REAL golden beaches - that's right, sand! None of these pebbles you get in Wellington.

Saturday we hired a double kayak and joined a guided tour, which I am not a huge fan of, but the guide was ok. Cheesy jokes galore, but it was good to have someone make you a plunger coffee on the beach. At one stage we all rafted together and got out a large piece of tarp and literally sailed across one of the bays, which was a nice rest from paddling.

Saturday night we stayed on this floating backpackers which was quite a novelty for both of us. It was quite busy but because we were late arriving all the bunks were full, meaning we got a double room all to ourselves, which was nice. All meals were included and they put on a good BBQ that night. Breakfast was good ole Weetbix and toast then we made our own sandwiches and jumped in the dinghy to be dropped on the beach for our 2nd day - the walk.

We got started reasonably early, but we spent a little too long exploring sites around Anchorage, meaning we didn't really leave the area until 11am, and we had to meet a water taxi at 3pm! The walking times as a guide were 4-5hrs, so we really powered into it. The first leg, Torrent Bay to Bark Bay, wasn't too bad and we arrived at 12:45pm. By this stage we were starving and had talked about nothing but food the whole way, so we paused here & devoured our sandwiches. This was the longest leg, 7.8km, so we though we had made pretty good time. If we could keep up this pace, we thought the 6.1km from Bark Bay to Onetahuti would be achievable in 2hrs.

Not wanting to leave it to chance, we set off after our 15min break and were met with a steep climb. With full tummies & legs more accustomed to pushing the pedals in a car than climbing hills, we were puffing! After an hour, it seemed the climbing part was over, but it didn't feel like we had made a lot of ground, and we appeared to be quite a long way inland, with only an hour to get to the beach and meet our water taxi!!! So we stepped kept the momentum up & pushed on, much to the protest of our knees on the sometimes steep downward slope. We reached our pickup point with 20min to spare and flopped on the beach. It was so nice to dig our hot feet into the cool sand. Our water taxi arrived right on time, and we climbed aboard along with a couple of other walkers and kayakers. Somehow the skipper managed to load 6 double kayaks and 2 singles along with all the passengers and the gear... must have been a sight to see! we got back to base and drank copious amounts of tea before heading back to Nelson, where I left Sarah to explore.

I am getting some photos developed today - yes, developed!! - they were shot on FILM!! - so hopefully some of them turned out ok. They are being scanned and burned onto CD as well, so I'll put some up here later.

First day of Summer...

Sarah arrived on Friday night and brought with her some lovely weather, so we can actually say we've had at least one day of Summer weather now. Any show of sun here brings out the teenies with their weenie shorts and singlets but not me... the wind was stilly chilly!! but I did manage to get a good dose of sun and Sarah even a little burnt on her nose. Saturday we went to Petone and wandered along Jackson St, and Sarah had lots of fun taking photos of the buildings. We had lunch in my favourite cafe, Lemon Squeeze, before heading into town, where we spent most of the time shopping!!

Here is a photo of some of the public sculpture in the city... ball of koru (ferns) is suspended over a square near the performing arts complex.

Sunday we returned to the city and hired a double kayak and spent an hour paddling around the yacht squadron, avoiding getting run over by cray boats and the like!!! Lots of fun though. We then spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Te Papa (I think we managed to see about 2 exhibitions - the place is huge!!!).

Today Sarah is braving it alone and finding out some more about travelling down South - working out bus passes and stuff. While she's keen to stick around Welly, I'm going to try and get her out and down South to see more of real NZ. This weekend I'm hoping to team up with her either in Nelson to do the Abel Tasman National Park, or perhaps further South to get down to one of the glaciers.... we'll see. :-)