Pancakes and Kayaking

Pictured: Top: Me at the "pancake rocks" in Punakaiki as the ocean splashes up through a huge hole in the really cool rocks that you can't see too well in this particular picture. Bottom: Our kayaks on the beach in Abel Tasman National Park.

Easter Sunday was taken up entirely by the longest drive of the trip: about 500 km (300 miles) from Franz Joseph Glacier to Abel Tasman National Park at the very top of the South island. We stopped in Punakaiki to see the "pancake" rocks, which were really cool rock formations that have a whole bunch of layers of rock all stacked up on each other. They don't know how they were formed, but they look really neat. The rocks have also been eroded in a very fun way, making caves and tall islands of rock that the ocean dances around with each breaking wave. Glad we stopped there.

We arrived in Marahau (tiny, and I mean tiny, town at the foot of Abel Tasman Nat'l Park) at around 5:30pm and were greeted with probably our crappiest accommodations yet. The nearby YHA in Motueka (yeah, try to say that) was full, so we were left to whatever the internet could provide. At least we got the (yes, "the" as in there is one) double room, though the walls were so thin that we may as well have just had a curtain separating us from the adjacent bunk rooms.

Yesterday we kayaked up the ocean along Abel Tasman, which was really cool. I think that was a really good way to see the park. We did a bit of hiking, but the trails just seemed to be a way to get from beach to beach, which was easier to do by kayaking. And it was a beautiful day, so all was well...or maybe I should say most was well. As you may know, Kane gets sea sick rather easily. We snorkeled in a bay in Hawaii once and had to get out after 15 minutes to prevent Kane from yacking all over the sea turtles (which were rather impressive, by the way). The water was pretty much as glassy as it could be, but even the slight rocking aggravated his sensitive stomach. He was feeling queasy when we stopped for our first break, but shook it off mostly by the time we headed back into the water. Then, as we were almost to the end of the kayaking part of the trip, we stopped a few times and just floated in the water to look at birds and have the guide tell us stuff about the flora, etc. It was the lack of paddling and subsequent isolation of the wavy movement that got him. We were in a double kayak, so I had to lean left to counter his lean right so that we didn't flip over while he gracefully fed the fishies. The release made him feel better (or good enough to get to shore at least), and we were fortunate to have been in a position such that none of the other members of the group saw or heard (or should I say that they were fortunate).

After we got to shore, we had lunch (now that he was on an actual empty stomach) and did a couple easy hikes before a water taxi (speedboat) picked us up at the end of the day. All in all a good time, next time we'll paddle like we mean it to avoid the yack-itude.

Today we drove to Kaikoura which is a small beach town on the east coast just north of Christchurch. I like it here and am really looking forward to swimming with the seals tomorrow. I hope I can handle the ocean temperature...it's not exactly warm water here...but at least there's no sharks or poisonous things. Australia had the courtesy to keep that crap to itself.