Ki Ora to the South Island

Sorry for the week delay....

After skydiving we, Casey and I in typical American fashion were craving Mexican food - not something so easily found in New Zealand, hit the grocery store and made our selves some kick ass chicken burritos. Friday was spent just bumming around the hostel as it started to rain again - got to watch a boot leg copy of Sin City (wicked film) hit the thermal springs

Saturday we made our way down to Wellington along SH1 highway - also known as Desert Road. The terrain in this country is amazing. One minute you're surrounded by lush green hills and acres of farm lands the next miles of black sands and dry brush. No wonder Peter Jackson chose this place as his backdrop fo Lord of the Rings.

In Wellington we checked into the hostel, the plan for Saturday was of course to hit a bar to watch the Lions play the All Blacks. See it was the first test match in Rugby during the Lions tour of New Zealand - and boy did they get their butt kicked!

Monday morning I woke up to blue skies and the sun shining. I was off to the South Island. The day started off with a 3 hour ferry ride through the Malborough Sounds. It never ceases to amaze me how everything here is so beautiful. Even the bus ride from Picton to Nelson had me taking pictures through the window. Once in Nelson I checked into a backpackers and booked myself a one day walk and sea-kayak around Abel Tasman National Park. Had I had the time and the company I would have liked to do the proper 4 day treck. Oh well, next time.

The bus to Abel picked me up at 7am (sun was still nowhere to be seen). Another girl from the hostel also got on. We got to talking and it turned out that Emma was going to be on the bus to Franz Josef the next morning as well. Emma (just graduated from university in Scotland) had spent the past 8 months travelling with a few months in Oz where she worked in a small mining town out west and at magnetic island on the east.

With Peter and Harold as our guides a group of 12 of us got geared up and went down to the starting point where we were able to go out a few meters because of the low tide. Our first instruction was to form a circle and introduce ourselves with a 'Ki Ora' (Hello in Maori), afer it was a 'Hongi' (Exchange of the breadth of life) - the Hongi consists of pressing noses and taking in a breadth. In the Maori language the word for enemy and stranger are the same - therefore by introducing ourselves in the circle we went from enemies to strangers. By performing Hongi we went from being strangers to becoming a tribe.

With the sun out and the air crisp we set off in our kayaks in tow. Emma and I decided to share and ended up making a great team. After the first stopping point along one of the beaches we both decided that we didn't want to stop kayaking and joined Harold and the one other pair of kayakers for the full day of kayaking. The five of us set off - Harold singing for us - his selection in musice ranged from old Maori songs to Queen's Bohemian Rapsody (complete with air paddle guitar). Harold was also chock full of information about the Park and the cliffs and the amazing Maori stories behind them. As we turned a corner we encountered a bunch of lazy fur seals who seemed to havet the right idea about sun bathing on the rocks. As we passed the seals the wind began to change and the water became choppy. The northern winds now had direct aim at us and kayaking became a bit more difficult. Harold warned us to steer the boats almost perpendicular to the shore line as the winds would be pushing us out to sea. I have to admit it got a bit scary, water spraying everywhere the waves bobbing us up and down. Luckily around the next corner we were blocked from the winds and had reached our lunch break spot on a little secluded beach. Everyone finished the lunches of rolls, pastries, fruit and sandwiches with no problem. By the end of the day we had kayaked 13 Km (around 9 miles i think). I had to give myself a little pat on the back for that :) By the time we got back to Nelson the sun had gone down and all we could think about was the hot tub that was outside our hostel. There's nothing better than soaking in a hot tub gazing at the stars after a day of kayaking

The next morning we had to wake up early yet again to catch the bus down the west coast to Franz Josef. Our next goal was to climb Franz Josef Glacier