The spectular-ness (I don't think that there is such a word, but there should be) of the South Island scenery was apparent before we even arrived! The ferry took us through the Marlborough Sounds; rugged, unspoiled coastline, with the occasional house, accessible only by boat, being the only development for miles and miles. We then drove north up the coastline to Abel Tasman National Park, on possibly the windiest (as in zig zaggy not as in blowy) roads I have ever been on in my life (and bare in mind the South American adventures so I do not make that statement lightly) and Margery took it all in her stride. Against all the odds and despite the few extra thousand KMs we're put on her (so far) she is doing brilliantly (so far). Ben has now fully mastered the way that you have to sneak her into third gear by almost going into fifth, and she's even been treated to a bit of interior design make-over in the form of photos of you ugly lot on her walls :0) I can't believe how at home I feel in a space which is about five metres by one metre and more to the point that I have to share with someone else (yep, he is still alive)!
The national park runs along the north coast of the South Island and we've done a bit of kayaking, which has got to be the best way to explore the park's pretty little coves and see it's dramatic cliff faces. The rocks have been worn into strange, smooth shapes where they enter the sea, which changes colour from blue to green and back to blue again (something to do with the colour of the sand apparently). Our guide (who insisted on talking like a pirate?!) pointed out some of the local bird life and I'm not really a big fan of birds. Animals of the fluffy, cuddly variety I can get excited about - and do, all the time, but birds generally just don't do anything for me. Now there are a few exceptions to this rule, the kiwi for instance (possibly because it is a bird of the fluffy, cuddly variety) and in Abel Tasman I found another one - the pied shag. Now admittedly it's comedy name does help, but that is not the whole reason. They look kind of like flying penguins and apparently they have really dense, heavy bones and webbed feet. These physical characteristics make them ideally suited to diving in water, but not so ideally suited, to our delight, to landing in trees!! Oh how we laughed as they had to make several attempts before crash-landing in the tree tops :0)
We've been doing a lot of hiking along the coastal track too, which I love but doesn't make for very interesting reading. But we were involved in a bit of drama when a woman who was walking near us fell and (I suspect) broke her hip. I hadn't really thought about how remote it is until that point.There are plenty of people around and lots of facilities, but no mobile coverage and an hour and a half walk to the nearest phone. I used one of my best practised skills - shouting loudly and got the message to a kayak guide who radio-ed for help. Not much later a doctor happened to be walking past and stopped to help, giving Ben and I the excuse to slope off and leave them to wait to be rescued.
The highlight of our time in Abel Tasman though has to be our seal swim :0) I actually tried to do this when I was here ten years ago and it was freezing and the seals all sat on their rocks looking at us like we must be mental for being in the cold water! They were having none of it! But not this time... it was still freezing, even in wetsuits and the like, but we were taken out by this old sea-dog character, who looked like Uncle Albert and kept bursting into song! Well he might be a bit odd but I think he's great after he took us to a seal "nursery" and this time the seal pups were more than happy to come and play (one, two, three... aaaawwwwww!). It was amazing, swimming in the sea with these gorgeous, wild animals, with huge eyes, who were swimming round and round us and coming right up to our faces then darting away at the last minute. Even the mums were joining in the fun.
The absolutely best bit was when one of the pups was resting on his flippers with his head out of the water, on a little rock which was sticking up. I went over and really slowly joined him there. The next thing... another one popped up and then another and another! They obviously all wanted to see what they were missing. In the end I was surrounded by six baby seals. It took all of my will power not to shout "BEN... LOOK AT ME!!!!!" at the top of my voice (no, no there's no photos, Ben was splashing about in the water too and the camera was safely tucked away in the dry -boo!)
Heather's little rant...
Ben's photos are beautiful, I love seeing them on the blog and I know that they are the real reason that most of you (not you Dad - thanks) bother to look at it at all (of course I'm not bitter!), but it's not always all that much fun hanging around waiting for the right light (blah, blah!) for him to get the perfect shot - AND we're hardly ever in any of them! You should know that every photo of me has been battled for and the ones with Ben in as well are usually following a row about the fact that he won't be in any photos! So anyway the point of this little rant is that I had a bit of a rebellion and took some of my own "snaps" of us muppetting around, so have a look here.
Ben:
Or you can look at my photos here
No comments:
Post a Comment