Duck in Wellies: West Coast

I'm four days into my final travels around New Zealand and already have loads to tell you about.

After crossing the Cook Straight on Sunday afternoon, I started with a couple of days in the Abel Tasman National Park, which is in Nelson at the top of the South Island. I had organised a trip to spend a day hiking independently, camp out in the park and then do a guided kayak trip back out of the park on the second day.

The most stunning bits of the Park stretch along the coast and you can get a water taxi to drop you off at any bay along the route. I started out at Awaroa, which is quite far North and I was the last person on my boat. The weather was grey and the sea was quite rough so I was glad to be off the boat and on dry land. The hike was along a coastal path and was pretty gentle. I only had about 12km to cover all day, which was good as I'd run the half marathon the day before.

A view along the walk

By about 2:30pm I arrived at my campsite for the night, which was right by a beach called Bark Bay. Luckily the sun chose to come out properly at this point, so I spent a couple of hours on the beach before setting up my tent. I also had plenty of time to take some photos. The campsite had good facilities and the location was stunning, the only problem were some very persistant sandflies that left about a dozen bites on each foot despite my insect repellent.

Bark Bay

The next morning the clouds and rough seas were back. I had met the other two members of the kayaking trip, Andy and Jorien, the day before as we were on the same water taxi and then camped together in the evening. Our guide for the day, Ayesha, arrived with two double kayaks and all the gear we needed. We set off and quickly found ourselves in pretty big waves, in fact the other kayak was often completely hidden by a wave only to bob back into view as the next wave lifted it up. A totally different experience to the lake in Rotorua, it was still a great trip. We skirted the coastline and covered about 17km over the day.

Andy and Jorien (in a calm patch)

Our amazing lunch stop set-up

Split Apple Rock

After a relaxing night in Nelson, I set off for the first long drive of the trip, down to Franz Josef. Covering about 550km took me all day. I passed through the windy Buller Gorge and then emerged on the West Coast. It was fitting that it was raining and windy as the West Coast has a reputation as a wild and untouched part of the country. The coastline is truly impressive and I kept stopping to take photos as well as dropping in to see the Pancake Rocks. I'm running out of time on my internet, so I'll simply post the photos from the drive.