had to get up pretty early this morning for our kayaking trip in abel tasman national park pickup at 7am with kaiteriteri kayaks. the kiwi bus also picks up at 7am. those kids get up 1 hour before the bus leaves at best. so we got up 2 hours before the bus leaves. made sure we could shower. after that, we checked out of the hostel and had them store some of our bags for us. after all, we are returning tomorrow. the vehicle arrived from kaiteriteri kayaks and we headed to another hostel. while at this hostel, i realized i had forgotten my hat and water back at our hostel. i had placed them down when checking out. the driver drove back for me, thank you! however, the place was locked up. they lock up the bar/office area when the bar is closed. i ran around to enter from the back. i could only find one worker and he didn't have a key to the bar area. the girl with the key had left and he didn't know where she went to. i told him about my hat and that she's already holding stuff for us. alright, so now i'm without a hat and i'm gonna get badly burned. great. i am also without water so i'll be dehydrated. fantastic! what a great start i am off to this weekend.

we get to kaiteriteri and it takes awhile before we board the water taxi and head out to where we will be kayaking today. there are only three others plus the guide. one of them is a girl from germany and she will camp tonight with us, the other two are a mother and daughter from england who are simply doing the day trip. the weather doesn't seem too bad, but then it starts to rain. luckily, before we set out, i was able to run across to a convenience store and buy some water and a tourist baseball style hat. so i did have some protection and hydration. whew.

kaiteriteri

we were dropped off at onetahuti and got into the kayaks. now the trip is turning a little sour due to the weather, but then it gets worse. twiddle thumbs gets seasick. she has learned in new zealand that her landlocked mexican roots don't mix well with water activities! i paddle to alternating sounds of her crying and vomiting. we break for lunch at a small beach and sit in a tiny cave for shelter. the sun comes out for a little bit. twiddle thumbs tells the guide that she's sick and has decided not to kayak tomorrow. they work it out that we can go on the water taxi instead of kayaking our way back.

where we stopped for lunch

we kayak on towards the seal colony of tonga island. didn't see any seals there. technically the ones around here are sea lions anyway. we did see them on the rocks earlier but not in the designated "seal colony" section. twiddle thumbs is sick again and the guide gives her some options. either we can kayak back to the beach we started from and walk the rest of the way, or we can tough it out to our camp destination. twiddle thumbs is brave and decides to tough it out. the guide helps us by attaching a tow line. twiddle thumbs only paddles a little bit at the very end so i had non-stop paddle sore arms. the weather started to clear when we had lunch but now it's beautiful. some quotes from our guide included that today is "not a brochure day" and "i'm sure you've heard this everywhere you've been to in new zealand but it's not always like this".

camp: our tent

we set up camp at bark bay and it wasn't so bad. took a walk around the area as it was low tide. when it's high tide, it's more like we are on an island as the area behind camp becomes a lagoon.

lagoon at low tide

more of the lagoon at low tide

no tire tracks because cars can't get here

for dinner, the guide made a very spicy thai style coconut curry over rice. dessert was a heavenly dark chocolate fondue with fruit.