kangaroo sightings

With the clock now ticking we are squeezing the most out of our remaining time in New Zealand. With 8 weekends to go, we spent this one surfing in Raglan. After a lazy Saturday morning, we made our way south for an arvo surfing lesson in Manu Bay. The weather was good (not great as there was a little bit of a chill in the air). Luckily our pre-paid lesson (thanks, GrabOne) included wetsuit hire though making us comfy as in the water. We both had a successful lesson and each managed to stand up a handful of times. Brendan being the more adventurous of us actually managed to stand up while catching a wave whereas by the time I made it to the standing position the wave was mostly past me leaving me to surf the back of the whitewater.   It definitely went better than my last surfing lesson though and made me excited for the next time I get a chance to try. The only complaint was that the surfing company was a bit over-zealous in their bookings leaving a third of us without boards! Brenda

The rest of the week kayaking was not as adrenaline pumping as the first day (with one exception) but it was incredible. We had crystal clear water, pristine beaches, close encounters with wildlife, and very few people until the last day. We got up early everyday to take advantage of the calmer conditions on the water, but then we spent the afternoon alternating between swimming and napping, so no complaints from me. Our short paddle days meant we always got the best campsites, sometimes arriving before the previous night's occupants had even left! And our extra time with the kayaks meant we were never rushed. We could explore as little or as much as we wanted, watching out for the tides of course. One such exploration was into a tidal inlet where we were told stingrays hung out. I think we looked for about an hour (B and I both fell asleep drifting in our boat I think), but didn't see any. Eventually, we gave up and went to set up camp. I decided to have a go with the snorke

  Let me just start by saying that I highly recommend Golden Bay Kayaks. The people were great, the boats were great, and coming around from Golden Bay at the northern end of the Abel Tasman park actually gave us the park mostly to ourselves for the first few days, which was AMAZING!    We discovered in the previous day's safety briefing that the four of us were actually quite lazy. Here I was thinking we were setting out on this hardcore holiday, when in reality the distance that we were going to take 5 days to cover, a family of four was going to do in 3 days. They had 2 teenagers though, so I blame their over zealousness on the lack of booze, because we were stocked! Oh, and a lack of hammock because, clearly, why would you paddle for 6 hours a day when you could paddle for 3 and then lay in the hammock for 3... There was a lot of hammock time on our trip, and I would just like to use this opportunity to give credit to Brian and Meghan for the best. present. ever.

We were staying 2 nights in Pohara, which I thought was the closest campsite to our kayaks. Turned out not to be true, but it was close enough. We spent the day lounging on the beach, swimming, lounging in the shade....  The only thing that we had to do was make it to our kayak safety briefing later that afternoon. It was fantastic. We were staying at a very commercial campsite, but we were fortunate to have it mostly to ourselves for our time there. Right before we left for our safety briefing, we did notice things starting to pick up. When we got back from our briefing, we thought the place was packed. I ended driving back by here a week later though, and we were mistaken. A week later it was unbelievably crowded! So much for a relaxing holiday at the beach... It is a very Kiwi thing to pack up everything, including the kitchen sink, and head to the beach. The fortresses that people had set up put our 2-man backpacking tent to shame. Pro our tent though, we

I don't blog very often, so I am guessing that it is no surprise that I am just getting around to blogging about our Christmas/Anniversary/Birthday/New Years holiday. Here it goes though, the highlights of our trip... Our holiday started with a flight to Nelson. After weeks of preparation, we were finally on our way. Several weeks later, there are only a few things that I remember about the flight. One, our packs were ridiculously heavy with our required 9 days worth of food in them. (Also, trying to come up with 9 days worth of non-refrigerated food is quite a challenge!) Two, Wellington was ridiculously cold. We had a stopover in Wellington and only had to walk outside to board our second flight, but even the flight attendants made note that I looked cold. Three, Nelson was beautiful. Warm, sunny, crystal clear water. Bring on the holiday. We had a few hours to kill in Nelson before catching a bus to Golden Bay. We started with our chores, which included