After we made our 'that's not a knife, THIS, THIS is a KNIFE' knives, we headed up to the Nelsen region of New Zealand. This is in the middle of the northernmost part of the south island, is smack dab in the middle of wine country, and is right beside the beautiful Abel Tasman National Park. Now, you should know that basically the entire south island is a National Park and that it's pretty much all beautiful, but still, it should be mentioned. We were pretty busy over the past few days, so we decided to have a lazy day in Nelsen and then maybe kayak the Abel Tasman coast the next day. We stayed at this sweet as hostel called The Bug, which is definitely one of the best hostels in the country, run by a cool, laid back guy and his family. It's called the bug because everything is VW Beetle themed. Our room was the Lady Bug. Lazy day began with yummy breakfast and a walk up to the 'peak' of Nelsen, where you can see over the entire town. Another great day in NZ, temperatures around 30 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. We sat down and looked over the city, but actually preferred to turn around and look back over the rolling hills and countryside.
Kayaking was probably going to be too time intensive and rushed, so we decided to walk the coastline instead. We took a water taxi from Marahau up to Anchorage Bay, where we saw the famous 'split apple rock' and several amazing beaches. On our walk back we promised ourselves we would hit up a couple of them. Anchorage Bay was great, but better beaches beckoned us, so we hiked up the hills and were on our way. Another 30 degree day, which is kinda too hot to be walking uphill in, so we plunked ourselves down on this little beach and lazed in the sun and swam in the calm bay. It's definitely nice to not have to worry about sharks, jellyfish, or rip tides like you do in Australia. But what you do have to worry about is rocks. Andrea smashed her foot up good on one and she was bleeding everywhere. Good thing we weren't in Australia or there surely would have been several Great Whites swimming right for us. lol.
When we got her back to the beach and bandaged up, it was obvious she was cut pretty bad, but we still had 2 hours to hike, and since Andrea's a trooper and an Army Ranger all in one, she laced up those Keen brand hikers like the keener she is and we marched on out of there. Great scenery, great walk, but the cut on Andrea's foot is not a highlight.
From there we drove to Picton for the night, where we'd catch the ferry the next morning to go to Wellington, but our GPS now has an apetite for the craziest and most off-the-beaten-track paths you can imagine. So many twists and turns up and down hills and mountains that I never had the car straight for longer than half a second the entire trip. Very beautiful (thanks, GPS) but after a long day I just wanted to GET THERE ALREADY! We'll have to keen an eye on that thing...
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