Kayaking the Able Tasman and our Trip South

Saturday morning my father and I got up early as we had a big day of kayaking and hiking planned in the Abel Tasman National Park which is in the Northwest Corner of the South Island. We chose to do the Two Gods Tour which consisted of a half day kayak followed by a half day hike. When we woke in the morning the weather was perfect. Sunny, not windy, and not a cloud in the sky! We left our place (The Waters) early, at 7:45, so we could make it up the coast to Marahau by 8:30 to meet our tour guide/tour group and get the day started!

We arrived there right on time, and the weather was still just wonderful. After a short check-in/introduction period the water taxi came to pick us up to take us into the National Park. There are no roads in the Abel Tasman national park, you must access it by walking in or by sea. Since our tour started a good ways into the park, we took a water taxi with the group and the gear to get to the start of our tour and then kayak/hiked back. Anyways, back to the water taxi. When we arrived, the guide told us the water taxi was going to come pick us up at 8:50 to take us down to the water. I assumed this meant a van from the water taxi company was going to come pick us up and we would meet the water taxi at the water, but boy was I wrong. What they do is they bring the boat to you on the trailer, it is being pulled by  a tractor. You then load onto the boat with your personal gear there at the kayak shop and then ride down the street in the boat on the trailer being pulled by the tractor. My dad thought it felt like we should be in a parade, I was just hoping nobody I knew would see me. Well actually it wasn’t that embarrassing, you just feel pretty weird sitting in a moving boat not on the water but on a road. I wasn’t able to get a photo as I was in the water taxi but use your imagination, rows of people sitting in a boat on the land. It’s almost like a school bus with boat shaped.

Anyways, we eventually got onto the water and into the park and it was amazing! On the way to where we were kayaking we saw a few seals lazing on the rocks – but more on this later, we ended up seeing tons! We dropped a few people off at different beaches and then headed to Awaroa Bay where our journey began. After the guide got us all set up in our tandem sea kayak with our gear and all we headed off into the Tasman Bay. We chose this specific tour because the kayak was through the Tonga Island Marine Reserve where no fishing is allowed and the wildlife thrive. Although we didn’t see much in the water as far as fish are concerned, we saw so many seals, it was amazing! I was pushing for this tour because it had seals and my father kept saying he’d already seen seals so it wasn’t that important to him, but he later admitted he had never seen seals like we did this day.

Throughout our kayak we likely saw about 40-50 different seals. They were lounging/sun bathing on the rocks, playing in the water, or charting their mating grounds for the upcoming mating season. The seals were swimming in and out amongst our kayak group, under our kayaks, and all around us. At some points we were likely only a few feet from these amazing sea creators.

For a bit more about the seals, our guide, Marty, explained to us the birthing/mating season is coming up shortly. The pups from last year are approaching a year old now. The seals are starting to return (from where, I don’t know. Every time this question crossed my mind I was not near Marty) and men are starting to plot their piece of rock for mating and the females are looking for a safe place to give birth to this years pups. So the pups are born in the December/January time frame  (mid summer here) – at least that’s what I gathered – and then the seals mate almost immediately afterwards for next year. As soon as the female gives birth to her new pup the old pup is kicked out of the family. When the pups are born they do not know how to swim and are kept away from the water and out of sight for about 1-2 months as they grow. When they are ready the mothers have to teach them how to swim. If the mother does not teach them in shallow enough water they can drown, as they don’t know what they are doing. Seal pups are not interested in water and many are not excited about learning to swim. (This was not obvious to us, however, in the slightly older pups we saw later in the day who could not get enough of the water!) That’s all I have on seals right now.

Anyways, we spent the morning kayaking along the coastline where we got to see seals, birds, amazing rock formations and beautiful vegetation. On the day we were out high tide was about 11:00 am. Because our kayak was over this time we were able to explore via kayak more places because they were full of water. There was one little lagoon area we went back into which was like a National Geographic special in real life. This area is back behind some rock formations and well protected from the sea, only accessible via 3 small passageways, and thus there are no waves. Going through this area, because it is so calm, feels almost like being on a river, and not just any river but what you would imagine the Amazon to be like. There are trees and shrubs growing right out over the water, the way is not very wide, and it is very twisty and turny. (I have a few videos but I am currently uploading about 60 photos to my blog as I write this so I cannot do the video now). Back in this lagoon there were 4 or 5 seal pups playing, and it was amazing. Once they saw us they came right up to our kayaks, swimming all around us, darting all over in the water, surfacing to play, and were just having a blast. It was so incredible to see these wild creatures up close and personal. We spent about 30 minutes back in this area watching the seals. I am so happy high tide was during out kayak trip or we never would have seen this. Just amazing!

After spending some time with the seals we then had to paddle quite quickly down the rest of the coast to make it to our mid-way point, Onetahuti Beach, in time for us to have a leisurely hike in the second half of the day. We rested there for a bit, had a basic lunch, and then headed off on our hike. The views from the hike were amazing and I kept getting tripped up taking photos of everything. We only had about 2 hours to make the 4 km hike and we did it just in time. For me the vegetation of NZ is starting to feel a bit more normal but for my father it is still very amazing. It was cool to see how much he was enjoying it. I finally got to show it to someone who had only seen photos, that don’t do it justice in way, shape, or form. We hiked up from the beach, through the bush, and then back down around a waterfall and to our final destination. Although the views weren’t as amazing as they may have been from the kayak we were happy to get out, stretch our legs, and give our shoulder/back/arm muscles a break. We met back up with our group on the far beach, some of who had kayaked and some of who had walked like us, for the trip back to Marahau on the water taxi. When we were coming into shore on the water taxi, they obviously needed to get it back on the trailer so they could drive us back to the kayak shop via the road, so the skipper went pretty much full speed towards the boat trailer and then we went “crashing” into it. It obviously wasn’t a crash, but I cannot believe anyone in MN bring their boat into the trailer at that speed. There was a very distinct bump and loud noise when we landed on the trailer. My dad was more amazing than I was, but I cannot imagine doing that with my own boat, that’s for sure. We then went back to the kayak shop, got in our car, and drove back to our B&B.

We had a glass of wine with the B&B keepers that evening and then went out for a nice pizza dinner in town, and that was that.

Onto Sunday now, and much less exciting, that is except for the morning part.

I would say in general we have gotten on much better than probably any of us expected we would. We haven’t really had any screaming fights, we have been able to do almost all activities together without much issue, and most importantly we haven’t killed each other yet. But with the more time we spend together, more disagreements come up, and I have to say it has been a bit of a struggle having my parents around all the time. After an argument on Saturday night about where we would stay in the Queenstown/Wanaka area (where we currently are), I came to revelation Sunday morning about what is happening and it all boils down to expectations.

I am really enjoying my time here in NZ because nobody here has any expectations about who I am/what I’m like/what I should be like/etc… Back home in MN I feel that a lot. I think I put some of those expectations on myself and I think others but some on my as well. Because I have been who I have been and how I have been for 24 years, people expect me to continue to be that way and sometime I just don’t want to. The biggest thing with this is planning things. I would say in the states I tended to be a planner for my friends. I would organize an event and invite everyone. I would make sure everyone had the details, knew the plans, and made it easy for everyone. Because of this, I think many people relied on me to plan things and sometimes I just don’t want to. I think it has gotten to the point with some people back home that if I don’t plan something or call them, they assume I don’t want to do anything, and that’s not true. And this is not how I operate here. My friends here don’t know that I have planned most things I have done for the last 24 years and as as good at it as I am. They don’t expect me to plan everything we do and they still call me if I don’t call them. And that is exactly how I want it to be. Granted I do still plan lots of things here with my friends but sometimes I will call up a friend here and  say, “Lets go out to dinner on Thursday – you plan it!” And it is so nice to just be able to show up.

How this relates to my parents is they have an expectation that I will plan everything and that I enjoy doing it. I do sometimes, but I don’t like the entire burden falling on me. And worse than that, I don’t like coming to them with a plan, them saying no, but not having a counter argument to my plan. I encouraged them a few times before they came down here to do some research but they did none, knowing that I am fairly well versed in what there is to do in NZ (I drilled most of my customers over the last 4 months on what we should/shouldn’t do on this trip). I don’t mind them relying on me, but I am not their personal trip planner. I would come up with an idea and if they didn’t like they would say that, but wouldn’t know what better to do. This all dawned on my Sunday morning when I finally told them that I do not enjoying doing all the work all the time, like I did when I was a kid. I want their input, as long as it is well informed, otherwise they can’t just say no to my plan without an alternative one to offer. This has worked better now in the last few days and I’m feeling better as well. So 2 good things came out of this, we are getting along better and I have clearly identified something about myself that I probably wouldn’t have identified so well before, and something that greatly affects my happiness level – because I wasn’t feeling very happy for the few days leading up to this revelation when all the planning pressure was falling on my shoulders.

Side note – another thing that came up in this conversation that I have also realized on this trip is that if I want to be friends with people that requires sacrifices and one of those sacrifices is also doing things I don’t want to do because that means spending time with a friend and building a stronger friendship. I’m not saying I do this well all the time because I don’t, but sometimes my friend will say, “Let’s do this” and I am thinking I don’t want to do that but because I want to be friends with that person I will. My father told me he finally figured this out about 10 years ago so I’ve got about 25 years on him on that piece of life knowledge. It’s amazing how much I’m learning about myself and life in general over here!

Okay, continuing on with Sunday… after our big revelation/family meeting moment we packed our things and left our B&B, the waters, about 11 am. We had a big drive ahead of us down the West Coast and couldn’t waste much time. (From the Abel Tasman to Wanaka is a 13-hour drive through a mix of somewhat easy driving and difficult mountain and costal roads. We planned to do about 7 hours on Sunday and 6 hours today, Monday). We plowed easily through the first bit as the roads weren’t too bad and arrived in Westport, the northernmost “big” city on the West Coast of the South Island around 2:30, in time for lunch. I had a customer at the restaurant a few weeks ago who drew me an entire map of the South Island and put everything on there that I should and shouldn’t do. They pointed out a restaurant in Westport, The Bayhouse, and said if it worked out we should stop there for lunch. It worked out, and we stopped there for lunch. The service from the counter girl was nothing to write home about but the food was fine and the view was amazing. It looked out over Tauganra Bay, a small bay on the Tasman Sea were surfers were out enjoying the waves and sun. The patio was very nice and on a sunny day it couldn’t have been a better place to stop. If you ever drive down the West Coast, stop there for lunch!

After that we continued south towards our goal town of Hari Hari. This town was about 7 hours from where we started and only about 1 hour north of the glaciers, a main tourist attraction on the West Coast. On our way we stopped to see the Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki and had an amazing drive down the West Coast highway. It is like driving down the Pacific Coast Highway in California. The road is right next to the beach and coast is amazing. The violent Tasman Sea crashing onto the coast – this is not an ocean that you swim in. After our long drive we made it to our destination, the Hotel Hari Hari, and spent the night there.

That’s all I can do now, I’ll get to today another day. I am now going to go through and caption all the photos from our first week on another post so you can see what we’ve been up to.

Best!