62) Abel Tasman to Cape Foulwind

Abel Tasman National Park was named after Abel Tasman, the Dutch navigator whose expedition made the first European sighting of New Zealand in 1642. Established in 1942, this small Park is renowned for its golden beaches and sculptured granite cliffs. What astonished us was the lovely blue, blue ocean water that was bluer than a robin's egg blue.

Getting outfitted and ready to kayak! We "hired" a double kayak with paddles, lifejackets and sprayskirts. A variety of options were available for overnight visits. We opted for camping, so plastic bags holding our camping gear was stashed in "almost" waterproof compartments. Other people opted for staying in the DOC huts or a floating backpackers hotel instead of schlepping camping gear with them.

A cool day with some spitting rain kept us in paddle gear as we explored the caves and incredible granite formations along the shore. Easy paddling (but cold water!) and lots of little sheltered coves to check out!














"Permanent European settlement began around 1855. The settlers logged forests, built ships, quarried granite and fired the hillsides to create pasture. For a time there was prosperity but soon the easy timber was gone and gorse and bracken invaded the hills. Little now remains of their enterprises. The landscape has been modified, perhaps more than in other NZ national parks. The vegetation cover varies and reflects a history of fires and land clearance, but the forests are regenerating well especially in damp gullies where a rich variety of plants can be found. Black beech dominates the drier ridges." http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/national-parks/abel-tasman/features/






A rainy day gave way to evening rainbows and a spectacular sunset over Tasman Bay.
























Dirk's Birthday called for a celebration! The skies opened up with rain right before dinner, so we cooked in a protected cave on the beach that kept us dry. As night fell, the rain stopped and the sunset turned spectacular colors. Candles provided the festive atmosphere for birthday cake on the beach.







No - despite the fire ban in the whole park due to dry conditions no one called in a water tanker plane to douse the flames!
Dirk: "if you didn't know how old you were, how old would you be?"
The World: "Oh grow up!"








Did we mention the water was a gorgeous blue?! Te Pukatea Bay, where we camped overnight up in the "bush" next to the beach. That little yellowish dot in the water on the left side of the picture is Dirk, paddling around in the morning light.




Did we mention the water was a gorgeous blue?!

The sun came out for a beautiful day of exploring around. This little island was home base for baby seals learning to swim in sheltered rock pools, and mom seals watching indulgently between snoozing in the sun. Other seals swam just off-shore, doing endless barrel-rolls, seemingly just for the fun of how it felt to be swimming in the blue blue ocean!






Tide going out of a little lagoon made lovely striated sand lines on the beach. It was fun to sneak into the lagoon in the sinewy path of the deepest water and try not to get stuck. We did it!










Shags wondering what we are all about!






Just another lunch spot! Pretty scrappy climbing on a *very* coarse granite - some shoes would have been nice!













Dirk looking happy as a basking seal! The seal rock is in the background. This is pretty perfect weather and no seas to speak of. A guide we met mentioned that on frisky days they can be paddling 3 m swells – the boats in front of you disappear in the troughs –that *would* make turning some of the points interesting!

In a high tide, you can kayak through these arches, but we contented ourselves with stretching our legs and walking through them to see the other side. In the background is the line of sand of the beach where we take our kayaks out of the water and get picked up for a water taxi ride back to the Park entrance. We put it off as long as possible...

This is definitely a place to return to. It is possible to kayak a few days, get on the Coastal Track to bypass the 'dangerous water' stretch of the coast, and then kayak back, catch a bus back or get a water taxi. The park is extremely user-friendly with numerous options.







One last jump in the Tasman Sea!












As a final surprise ride, the water taxi simply pulled up onto a trailer where a tractor pulled it, and us, up onto the road, and a few hundred yards down to the outfitter office! The high tidal range and lack of good mooring means that many (most?) boats are pulled out of the water every trip - passengers get on the boat on land and are driven out across the tidal flats to water deep enough to float their boat!






Our next leg took us up the farthest NW part of NZ - Farewell Spit, Tuhuroa or Onetahua (depending on source). It is 26 km long (above sea level) with an additional 6 km of shallow sand bars. It is reportedly the longest natural sandbar in the world.


















Beaked whale skeleton at Farewell Spit.







A majority of the spit is closed to the public
except through rather spendy eco-tours which we decided against.

"Its huge dunes form a coastal barrier that protects an important staging area for migratory shore birds. A total of 83 species of wetland birds have been recorded at the spit, which is also a breeding ground for colonies of Australasian gannet. This significant location is now protected and considered a Wetland of International Importance."(http://www.aatravel.co.nz/101/101-details.php?section=MustDo&101Id=Farewell-Spit) We walked out at sunset on the few km open to walkers - the windward side of the spit is awesome terrain - kilometers of crescent dunes shaped by the howling wind, stunning sand dunes, artistically resplendent exposed cross-beds, and scoured pebbles. A photographers paradise!(except for the windblown sand getting into *everything*!)






















It was hard to leave Abel Tasman in such fine weather but beckoning voices called from the western coast. Who can resist a drive to something as foreboding as 'Cape Foulwind'?

Named Tauranga ('Sheltered Anchorage') by Abel Tasman, it greeted Cap't Cook with days of desperate wind and high seas on his lee shore. He referred to it as Cape Foulwind - the name has stuck.

But on our visit, it belied its name--with clear skies, a slight breeze and lovely views as we walked the track to the lighthouse passed the seal colony, beautiful flowers, and a flat sea.































Paddling in the Abel Tasman - the full 360 view!

61A) Kaikoura to Nelson

Before we left Kaikoura, we cruised about town a bit. It's an old whaling town, due in part to the proximity of the Haikurangi Trough so close to shore. (Also why the Albatross are so close in and why the whale watching is so popular here.) We opted not to go out to see the the Sperm whales. One couple we met said they went out and had a good look -- at them sleeping!






A plaque explaining the whaling history here (you can click on the picture to make is bigger) with a bit of non-PC commentary at the end.













A public garden in town with historical reminders of the towns whaling origins. These are whale jawbones used "creatively."























As we headed north in rainy weather we camped at a popular surf spot. The great joy of a camper van is the "drive-and-drop" - we just pulled into community dispersed camping (one toilet, no water and signs asking you to keep off private land) along the beach and parked. There were many surf vehicles and lots of campers (all closed up due to the rain). We did find the NZ version of a 'hot tub' but it was too wet to try and get a fire going!


Next day the weather improved - just another lunch spot along the coast!









A rather entertaining approach to marketing - think of the implications of this.....

























Thousands of lilies along the roadways.




An eye catching vehicle


















The sky is reflected in the river that flows under the Pelorus Bridge. The Pelorus Reserve had a wonderful campground, with great birds. The Wekas were adorably curious. By you can't jump off the bridge!
















Hazards of NZ driving - There are hundreds of one lane bridges all over the country - even on the 'major' roads. Some like this, one have both lanes of traffic AND the rail line. The long ones even have passing bays in the middle so you don't have to back the whole length of it if you end up having to "chicken" out to oncoming traffic! Signs indicate which direction has the priority.








The Arctic tern is a world champion for migration - they travel 22,000 miles from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back. They see more daylite than other species. They are in both hemispheres for the longest days, and in a 20 year life span are thought to log up to 650,000 miles!

61) Return to Te Wai Pounamu - the Waters of Greenstone

This being our research or "non-teaching" semester and therefore the time to 'go on holiday' we decided to spend two weeks traveling by camper van around the South Island of NZ. At 58,000 square miles, the island itself is1/2 the size of Colorado, so 2 weeks would be plenty of time to take in the laid-back vibe of Te Wai Pounamu - the Waters of Greenstone (the south island) of the Aotearoa - Land of the Long White Cloud (New Zealand). ( Lots of places and birds are referred to by their pretty indigenous Maori names).

Well - not even close. We envied the multiple folks who were there for 2-5 MONTHS! But in the next few blogs we will provide a glimpse at some of the beautiful and other things we managed to see in our short visit.

A Royal Albatross (Toroa Ingoingo), above. Note the Albatross drinks salt water and filters out the salt in a gland by their eyes. The salt is then excreted by nostril tubes through the bill--hence the nose drop on the bird, above. Although a chick is raised on land, it makes no practice flights and simply steps off the cliff into the wind. It won't walk on land again for 3-6 years and will spend more than 80% of its life at sea. It breeds only in NZ, but rides the circumpolar winds to feed on squid in seas off South America, turning along a route to the south of Africa and Australia, back to NZ. (info from A. Crowe, "Which New Zealand Bird?)







Geology in action, folded rocks.








New Zealand Fur Seals (Kekeno) off the coast of Kaikoura. After being hunted nearly to extinction, these guys are making a comeback and we actually saw quite a few of them in a number of places on various coasts of the South Island.











Ho, hum, I'm a seal waking up from a nap!

(A power lounger, like many of the other seals we saw--it's got to be hard work swimming and finding food in the cold ocean. These guys made draping yourself over a pile of rocks for a nap look comfy!).


A typical NZ "hedge" used as a windbreak around the country. In this case, protecting berry bushes from the gales. We sampled the
berry ice cream--1 block ice cream + hand full of wind-protected berries, put in funnel with a spiral meat grinder type looking device, hand crank into a cone, and voila! Berry Ice cream cone!





Australia thought they had the corner on "large" objects, but NZ is a competitor... here's a large crayfish, and some type of fish. Maybe whitebait? Don't know my fishes...
























A Kereru or New Zealand Pigeon. Very pretty for a pigeon, and very LARGE in its own right.








This pretty flower was blooming everywhere.















We decided to take advantage of an "Albatross Encounter" boat tour to see Albatrosses and other cool sea birds. Just offshore of Kaikoura is
a deep ocean trench, where the albatrosses find their food. This is advantageous to seeing birds you don't usually get to see. I had always thought of albatrosses as only being creatures of the open ocean, so was pleased to be able to see them so up-close. Of course, albatrosses need to eat, too! The tour cheated by enticing the birds with a frozen block of fish livers. Apparently the albatrosses will be miles away by the next day, so don't depend on the chunk of food provided by us (that's the story, at least, and I'm sticking with it so I don't feel guilty about paying to see birds by feeding them. And we were told albatrosses are picky eaters--this isn't garbage food for them, it's healthy).


Albatrosses: "This poor bird was accidentally maligned by a poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The albatross was beloved by ancient seamen because it flew so far out from shore, it was usually the first indication of land seen on board inbound ships. In Coleridge's poem, a seaman killed an albatross then had to wear its carcass around his neck in penance." http://www.alphadictionary.com/goodword/word/albatross

















A northern Giant Petrel (above) .

Coming in for a graceful landing (left).

A Shy Mollymawk (with beautiful eyes!) (below). These girls and guys hung back while the Royal and Wandering Albatrosses chowed.

Lots of pretty "Cape pigeon" petrels (also known as the Pintado petrel (Pintado is Spanish for "painted", in reference to the species' clearly contrasted coloration--Wikipedia).













A Wandering Albatross in breeding plumage (note the pinkish feathers on the back of his neck). Albatrosses are classified as 'huge' seabirds, whereas Mollymawks are only 'very large'. The Wandering Albatross holds the record for the world's longest winspan of any living bird: 3.63 m (that's almost 12 feet!). See video (at bottom of page) to see these birds in action around the fish liver smorgasbord!































Hutton's Shearwaters, which breed only in the seaward Kaikoura Range.





A Northern Giant Petrel landing and showing his beautiful big wings.











Luckily, it was easy to find directions for our next adventure - the remaining questions was - where to go! So N it was - to sea kayak and camp in the Able Tasman National Park before heading off to Cape Foul (can't you just f-e-e-l the foreshadowing of things to come....?)