Kristopher's New Zealand Trip

So its been a while since the last post. We left Blenheim a week or two ago. The day we left Blenheim we drove up to Picton. We hopped on a water-taxi and drove out to the end of the Queen Charolette Track into Ship Cove. The drive out was incredable. We drove up through the sounds. Once we got up to the end of the track we hopped out of the boat and we started the walk. The first day was really difficult while we were hiking because we went straight up the hill and then down but it was only a 2 hour walk until the first campsite. All throught the walk there was incredable view to see. We set up camp for the night and had a relaxed evening on the ocean playing cards and such. We ended up going to bed fairly early so that we could get an early start on the hike for the next day. The next day when we woke up it was really gloomy outside. By the time we were almost packed up it started to drizzle. We packed up as fast as we could and threw the bag covers on. We started out it a light rain the next morning. As the day progressed it looked like the rain wouldn't let up at all. As we neared the end of the day the rain eased off and we were able to set up in dry weather. Later that evening when we were down at a lodge that was close by having a coffee the rain picked up again. It didn't stop until about 8:30 when we ran to our tents to settle down for the night. The night before Jordan had left of rain fly at the last campsite so we had to through a tarp over the tent. There was already water in the tent when we went to bed and by morning everything in the tent was wet. We went back to the lodge and looked at the weather for the next couple of days and saw that it was bad weather for the next couple of days so we called it a day and hopped on the water-taxi back to Picton. We drove to Nelson and stayed at a hostel for 2 nights. This gave us time to dry out and get ready for the next hike. It was a really nice hostel so it was fun to hang out in for a couple of days. I picked up a new tent for the next hike in Nelson as well. We decided to book our campsites for the Able Tasman hike and then drove up to Marahau. We found a nice hostel for a decent price and spent the night there. We were going to Kayak that day but the weather was not very good so we decided to wait until after the hike. The next day we hopped on a water-taxi out to Totaranui. We dropped or bags and hiked the Gibbs hill track to the other side of the pennisula and then hiked back on the coast of the pennisula to Totaranui. We grabbed our bags and headed down to Awaroa Bay for the night. We had to cross the tides at the right time so we could only get to the campsite after 4:30. The next morning we got up and quarter to six so that we could catch the tidal crossing. That was one of the hardest parts of planning this hike because there are tidal crossing that you need to take. The whole next day we hiked down to Torrent Bay where we stayed the night. The next day we hiked out to the start of the hike. When we were walking back we went to a lookout point and we saw a pod of 40-60 dolphins. It was increadable. There was so many dolphins and lots of them were jumping out of the water. When we got to the end of the track we were all beat. Everyones feet were done. The next day we got a beautiful day so we went out to a kayak. We kayaked out to Fisherman's Island and Adele Island. We saw so many seals and a penguin. There was seals swimming in the water with our kayaks. It was awesome. We also so some rays swimming in the water. They were massive. Once our day of kayaking was over we drove to Motueka for the night. Then the next day we drove down to Nelson Lakes. We found a nice 4 night hike for us to do. Last night we spent in a campground and tonight is in a hostel. Tommorow we start on the hike. Its called the Traverse-Savine. Pictures will be up as well if you want to look at them.

Kris