We hung out w/ Jason and Betsy a bit in the morning and for breakfast (Jason made some good grub) then headed out towards Abel Tasman, which is a very large conservation area along the coast, we were going to hike there today and reserve a kayak for tomorrow. We agreed to meet them at their next house which they are moving to tomorrow, it’s further up the coast and right on a beach, should be fun. The drive was about an hour, it wasn’t very far distance wise, but very windy road through the hills. We reserved our trip for tomorrow, we’re going to have a guide come w/ us on kayaks up the coast for about 3 hours, then we hike back along the coastal range, which is beautiful.
After booking that, we found a very nice little chalet for the night, we have a nice little porch that overlooks a field w/ horses and in the distance is the ocean. This was just a short walk to the entrance to the park, so we went over there and took the afternoon to do a hike inland through the park. The hike started off nice, the weather is perfect yet again, I really can’t believe how lucky we’ve had it with the weather. Since we were going to be hiking back along this same trail on the waterfront tomorrow we decided to take the inland track today. This was ALL uphill, and not a slight hill, a steep hill. We basically walked fo
r 2 hours uphill, what surprised me the most is that I didn’t fatigue like I figured I would. I guess all that bike riding I did in the early part of my sabbatical is helping out. Even the though it was tons of work, when we got to the top of the hike, the view was amazing, we’d scaled quite a bit and were at a fairly high altitude and could see everything. It was worth the effort to get here.
The hike down took significantly less time that the hike up. We took a little side hike for about 30 minutes and still made it down to the hike entrance quicker than it took to reach our
summit. At the trail entrance is a restaurant/bar and my reward awaited me, a nice cold Tui beer. Mmmm mmmm mmmmm. It was really good.
After nursing that beer for a bit we walked back to our chalet, cleaned up (we were probably as smelly as we’ve been on this trip due to the 2 hour uphill hike in the warm weather), and headed up the street for dinner. There are only two restaurants in town here, the one I had my beer at and one other one up the road on the waterfront. We went to the 2nd restaurant and it was pretty good. Now we’re back at the chalet, sitting on our porch, drinking some wine we bought in Marlborough and reading/writing. Tomorrow we get up early to kayak.
After booking that, we found a very nice little chalet for the night, we have a nice little porch that overlooks a field w/ horses and in the distance is the ocean. This was just a short walk to the entrance to the park, so we went over there and took the afternoon to do a hike inland through the park. The hike started off nice, the weather is perfect yet again, I really can’t believe how lucky we’ve had it with the weather. Since we were going to be hiking back along this same trail on the waterfront tomorrow we decided to take the inland track today. This was ALL uphill, and not a slight hill, a steep hill. We basically walked fo
r 2 hours uphill, what surprised me the most is that I didn’t fatigue like I figured I would. I guess all that bike riding I did in the early part of my sabbatical is helping out. Even the though it was tons of work, when we got to the top of the hike, the view was amazing, we’d scaled quite a bit and were at a fairly high altitude and could see everything. It was worth the effort to get here.The hike down took significantly less time that the hike up. We took a little side hike for about 30 minutes and still made it down to the hike entrance quicker than it took to reach our
summit. At the trail entrance is a restaurant/bar and my reward awaited me, a nice cold Tui beer. Mmmm mmmm mmmmm. It was really good.After nursing that beer for a bit we walked back to our chalet, cleaned up (we were probably as smelly as we’ve been on this trip due to the 2 hour uphill hike in the warm weather), and headed up the street for dinner. There are only two restaurants in town here, the one I had my beer at and one other one up the road on the waterfront. We went to the 2nd restaurant and it was pretty good. Now we’re back at the chalet, sitting on our porch, drinking some wine we bought in Marlborough and reading/writing. Tomorrow we get up early to kayak.
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