South Island

Hi again.

the south island.

the feeling of new adventures.

But before that - we took a day off and relaxed.

And on the 8th we started "The Queen" - a famous trek called "The Queen Charlotte".

We did only half of it, but in 3 relaxing days. We didn't enjoy it too much, most of the time we walked in a boring forest with no views... And even the views we had weren't thrilling, but between "nice" and "very nice". Nothing that made us want to stop and admire the scenery like we did on the last 2 hikes...

Points of interest along the tramp:

- We had a nice ride with the rural mail to the beginning of the tramp. Funny experience.

- instead of huts they have real lodges along the way. The 1st night we spent in such a lodge. We were the only hikers there, and they were quite amazed by the fact that we carried our pack ourselves - most of the people have their stuff transferred from lodge to lodge... It was a nice lodge, but we felt kind of out of place

- in the morning i took a little kayak and rowed for half an hour. best half hour of the tramp itself!

- on the water taxi back, we had the most amazing part of the whole "Queen" thing - the views were really good, and we saw a pod of Dusky dolphins. ~10 of them, with calves. Such beautiful animals!! That was so exciting! They were really so beautiful! They have a yellow line on the side, and they're just adorable.

Back to picton, to the jugglers' rest, the homey backpacker.

We even met there a very nice Israeli couple - elad & liat.

The following day, the 11th, we hitchhiked to kaiteriteri. It took us 4 rides, and the best part of a day, but we got there, and booked 2 days of kayaking in the abel-tasman starting the very next morning.

We spent the night in a huge campground, where most of the people stay for several weeks (they build massive tents, with fridge and all).

The next day, after some basic explanations and guiding lines we set out to the sea, with guides for almost an hour and than only us and another Israeli couple maayan knew.

We had so much fun, kayaking these 2 days!! It's my first time really kayaking (the Fiji kayaking exp. And the half an hour on "The Queen" don't count), and i really really liked it!

:)

And on the second day we saw a penguin, and lots of seals. We even got really close to the seals, and one of them even swam under our kayak, bubbling air bubbles and playing.

They were so amazing!

When we'd finished, it was raining quite hard, and though we managed to keep our stuff almost dry during the whole two days of kayaking, it all got soaked wet on the open water taxi back...

we took the shuttle to nelson, where we spent the night in a nice little hostel, and dried our stuff as much as we could. Which wasn't really enough...

The next day, Sunday the 14th of Jan. we hitchhiked all the way to St. Arnoud, the gateway to the nelson lakes N.P.

What a week... 2 water taxies, Seals, kayaking, and the duskies!!