We arrived in Abel Tasman somewhat late on the 9th and spent the night having a little BBQ with the bus. We had fun and met quite a few people most notably was an Irish guy who after telling us how in Ireland its easier to get a beer in a pub if you sound like an American, did his best impression of an American accent. This ended up sounding how Steve Urkel would sound with an Irish accent, hilarity ensued from there.
The hostel here is really something different. Its called “Old Mcdonald's farm,” and its exactly that. The rooms are little storage sheds with beds, and they are situated right next to various animal pastures. The first thing I see in the morning when I wake up is a cow about 30 yards away, and on my way to breakfast I see llamas (or Shamels as our driver calls them) and sheep. The also have various creatures just roaming around like: peacocks, ducks, chickens, roosters, dogs, ect ect ect. It’s actually grown on us after the first day and I’m going to be slightly disappointed to leave the Shamels and friends behind.
The following day was pretty ugly, lots of rain and no sun, which also means no airplane flying. So for plan-b we decided to a bus tour and water taxi around the park. This ended up being pretty decent because we got to make a few great stops; the most notable of which being what we call “Jurassic Park.” This little hike was absolutely amazing, the forest was filled with huge rock formations that were carved by decades of rain into crazy shapes with nooks, crannies, and huge tunnels. The vegetation was mostly huge ferns and these cold weather palm trees with no coconuts. With the addition of the rain and the fog you couldn’t help but think a big t-rex was looming in the area. We also went to PuPu springs which is a natural spring which supposedly has the clearest water in the world (about 300-400 ft visibility). Unfortunately it was raining so hard all we could see was raindrops hitting the water...bummer. The last part was a “water taxi” around the ocean area of the park, this was actually horrible as there were 3-6 foot seas and dense fog.
Today we decided to have a big adventure, because the weather was beautiful...FINALLY. We rented kayaks and spent 4-5 hours paddling a few miles up the coast to Ancorage bay where we would have a 4-5 hour hike through the park back to home base. Aside from being exhausted, we had a great time. We met our first American's on the trail back home and pretty much hiked with them all the way back discussing politics and economics...So now we've had our American exposure for the week we should be good for another week or so ;)
