Abel Tasman...again

Day 223

"Freedom is mine. The earth is still.
I feel the wind. I breathe again.
And the sky clears"


Sun, blue sky, clear turqoise water, sandy beaches, warm weather...these are not generally how someone would describe New Zealand but this country certainly has it all. Snowcapped mountain peaks in middle of summer as well as...picture perfect paradise beaches. This is Abel Tasman National Park.

I visited Abel Tasman quickly before, on December 26th when I passed it with Tuulia and Sami quickly. Since it was only 3h detour as I was heading back to North Island, I decided to spend another 3 days there and really try to see the area fully.

So I arrived to Motueka and to my horror, I had booked bed for myself in a frigging hippie hostel in Motueka! Now, I have a simple message to all hippies, smoking weed does NOT make you better singer after 23:00 when someone exhausted from day's walk is trying to sleep. V*tun nuotiokitaristit sanon mina per...Er, sorry about the Finnish. Hostel had some group of hippies smoking dope in the evening and at around 23:00 someone gets an idea to get guitar out of their trunk and start playign/singing so badly(of course they all thought he was great!) that I wished Simon Cowell(or even Jone Nikula) would have been there to render some honest judgement.

Anyway, I didn't arrive to Motueka to spend time in hostel, I came to Abel Tasman. Most popular activity by far in there is sea kayaking. I decided to skip that just because I got my life's worth of sea kayaking done in Tonga, first circle around Ofu and then Uoleva. So instead kayaking I took the cheaper option, walking. Abel Tasman has one big walk, its one of New Zealands Great Walks called Abel Tasman Coastal Track, length 45km and designated as 3-day walk. Well, what makes Abel Tasman park so different and easily accessible with it's water taxi system. People can just take water taxi into several bays and walk to any other bay and get picked up by taxi later on, brilliant system.

So I ended up doing so called 2-bay walk, which was 15km in total. Amazing weather all day and it was so hot I actually managed to drag my ass into ocean and swim a bit...first time I have done that in New Zealand so far(excluding diving). Water was still freezing, about 20-22 degrees. Here are some of the views during walk.

After Abel Tasman I headed to Nelson for 2 days. Statistically, Nelson has 2 interesting facts. One fact is that it is sunniest town in New Zealand having more sunshine per year than any other town. Second, it is also location of geographical center point of New Zealand(yea, quite a feat...sigh).

And about the sunshine...how ironic is it that when I get there it rains. Luckily it was only shower but still it felt funny. Other than sunny and warm weather, Nelson was surprisingly dull. Pretty town, but dull.

After going through almost all towns worth seeing in New Zealand, there is clear winner. Twin town of Tauranga and Mount Maunganui in North Island's Bay of Plenty is clear winner. It was also only town in New Zealand where I might even remotly consider settling in to.

So now it's only 6 more nights left in Kiwiland till I'm whisked away in Oz again. I do hope don't find my Oz in smoke and ashes after those horrible bushfires in Victoria, where I am scheduled to arrive in 2 weeks time. Still one more entry to come from NZ where I will try to wrap up this country, its flaws and its high points. Till then...take care and see you all soon!