Abel Tasman, or a long time between sporks
1 December 2004 (with edits on 2 December, since details last night were thin!)
December. Can you believe it? I’d forgotten all today. Just realized now when I went to date this.
It’s 8 PM, the sun is shining brightly, and it’s still a gorgeous evening. However, I am dead tired, sunburnt (UGH), and about to just sit in bed and watch a movie. First, though, I’ll write up today’s adventures.
I woke up at 5:45 to my Palm Pilot alarm, still tired from last night because I had stayed up late watching Whale Rider. I absolutely HAD to see it before I went kayaking. Just in case we saw whales. I liked the movie a lot, although it veers from the book considerably in every single detail except the fact that there’s this girl and she’s the one who can communicate with whales. But to all of you, particularly those of you who have seen the movie, I now say, READ THE BOOK. Chris was right. Read the book. I have it. You can borrow it. It’s a fast read.
Got ready for the day and went out to see what the deal with breakfast was. Fruit was in the fridge, cut up and ready for me, bread for toast was on the counter. Perfect. I stuck two slices in the toaster as I paced around eating the fruit, trying to think about what else I needed to bring with me. There was some great currant or some red berry jam yesterday to have with toast, and that was there today, as well as some thick orange-yellow stuff. I thought it was honey and got very excited. Smeared it on my toast and found out it was lemon curd or something citrusy. Wasn’t what my mouth was expecting, but it was terrific, and I had it on all my toast. Made myself a cup of tea to force more liquids. If there’s one thing I’m not doing particularly well, it’s overhydrating to the extent Michael prescribed. Particularly today when I knew the bathrooms would be few and far between, and I’d be in a kayak in the middle of the sea. No use peeing in your own kayak. (Maybe in someone else’s…) When no one had appeared by 6:40, I was getting concerned. I needed to be at the bus before 7. Finally, Deb came out (I didn’t recognize her in a bathrobe and without makeup; I’d seen her for all of ten minutes two days ago when I was exhausted and ill) and said Mike was in the truck waiting. I thanked her and ran out the door. Mike and Frank (some little obnoxious dog) drove me to the bus station. I thanked them profusely.
The bus came a few minutes late, and the few of us standing there climbed on. They all had tickets, but the driver said to me, “Are you Jennifer?” and when I said that I was, he checked me off on his list. We made a few more stops to pick people up on the way to the park, and the driver did his best to tour guide us through the towns and such. He referred to those long areas of sand and muck as mud flats, with no mention of mussels, so maybe I’m just making that part up. He also pointed out where farmers were growing hops, which look slightly like grapevines, but the strings on which the vines grow are more vertical (diagonal, actually) than horizontal.
We got to our home base in Marahau around 8:40, and I checked in and paid. They had a note by my name saying “Card refused”, and I told the girl that that sort of made me nervous. But the other clerk said that she had written the note and had talked to me on the phone, so probably just took my number down wrong. Indeed, when they swiped the card through, it worked just fine. They pointed me out to go join my group, led by a young guy named Scotty. Scotty was being “assessed” today by Adam. Apparently, to lead any tour by oneself, you have to be “assessed” by a senior tour guide. Although Scotty was allowed to lead other tours, he hadn’t yet been assessed for the Tonga Island seal tour. What this meant was that we go two tour guides with the eight of us. Only two of us were traveling alone, so we paired up. Vanessa was from the UK, and although we got along well enough to not flip our kayak, I didn’t particularly like her that much.
Scotty and Adam both very much looked the part of New Zealand outdoorsy guides. If I said to you, “Imagine your guide for sea kayaking in New Zealand”, this is what you’d imagine. Both had scraggly long-ish hair, were fit, very tan, and wore jaunty hats, swim trunks, and friendly dispositions with ease. They handed out large plastic bags into which we put all of our personal belongings that were coming with us in the kayak. They also distributed waterproof camera boxes, although written all over them were the words “No guarantees”. Vanessa and I grabbed a medium sized box and put both our cameras in it. We grabbed a bag lunch, also provided. I grabbed a vegetarian one since I was pretty sure the sandwiches were going to be ham and I’d specified “no ham” over the phone the day before. We were given purple spray jackets and a life jacket and instructed to put these on for the ride in the water taxi. Geared up, we climbed onto a water taxi (basically a boat!), and a guy driving a tractor hauled us the quarter mile or so to the beach. We looked pretty ridiculous wearing life jackets while sitting on a boat being towed by a tractor, I have to say. Once at the beach, the tractor was able to drive across quite a length of sand dune to get the water taxi afloat. Scotty told us a story of another water taxi company, a start-up with only one taxi, when, in their first season of operation, the driver missed the outgoing tide by five minutes and was stranded on the sand dunes until the next tide came in. Regardless, by this point, we were off and flying along.
The water taxi delivered us, while another delivered our gear and kayaks, to a protected beach. Then, we had morning tea. Yes, we had done precisely nothing except put on life jackets and board and disembark from a water taxi, and yet already New Zealand had stopped for morning tea. Hot tea, coffee, and muffins appeared from some stash Scotty had. After tea, we were given kayak skirts and instructed in their use. These are neoprene sheets which fit tightly over the portal where you sit in the kayak. Then, there was a safety briefing which basically consisted of “here’s what to do if you tip over, which you won’t, but if you did, here’s what you’d do”, and then time for us to practice. The gist was, get yourself unattached from the kayak and come up for air. We practiced on land, by the way, not in water!! We were taught the basics of our kayaks – what the pedals were, how to release and raise the rudder, how to steer. Then, we grabbed paddles and were given some basic instruction with them, and shown two signs that our guides might make if there was a problem – one being “stop paddling”, the other being, “come to me”. With me having no preference whatsoever, Vanessa decided she’d take the back, which is the steering post. We launched ourselves, with assistance from Scotty and Adam, and we were bobbing around in the sea.
Instantly I couldn’t figure out how to paddle properly. I’d say it took me a good 15 or 20 minutes to figure out how not to exhaust myself, and exactly what angle to enter the water, and how to keep a rhythm going, and how to not bash my hands on the side of the kayak. As we got out from the beach, we got hit with some swells. We’d been told to go through waves like that head on and just keep paddling, but whenever I saw one coming, I’d get distracted by it, and stop paddling substituting nervous laughter instead, so periodically Vanessa would have to remind me to keep paddling. Slowly, we got into a rhythm, although whenever Vanessa got distracted she’d forget to steer, so we veered off course more than once. Probably due to inexperience, we were always the slow boat and everyone else was well ahead. We’d been told to stay within talking range of at least one other kayak, so they weren’t THAT far ahead, but still. Adam and Scotty were in their own one person kayaks, so one of them would always hang back with us which was nice. Of course, they’d paddle maybe three strokes and then float along just ahead of us talking to us as we pretended we were doing just fine and meanwhile were paddling madly. And when we caught up, they’d paddle another three lazy strokes and repeat the process. We paddled all morning to a protected cove called Mosquito Bay. One side was a pond that flowed into this amazing lagoon. We pulled our boats onshore and dug out our lunches. I was surprised by how wet I’d gotten. Despite the skirt, my shirt was soaking, as were my shorts, and I was glad I had my “swimming costume” (that’s swimsuit to you and me) on underneath.
Scotty cooked some local mussels for us, while some people went for a swim in the lagoon. I devoured my lunch. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. Lunch was a mushed sandwich (I’d crushed it packing it into my kayak), pasta salad with sundried tomatos, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds, and raw peas (I know that all sounds weird, but they were going for high energy), dried fruit (banana chips, dates, peanuts, raisins), an apple, a chocolate chip cookie, and what I’m calling an energy ball – it was about the size of a meatball and consisted of dates, wheatgerm, molasses(?), and other stuff, just rolled together into one solid, chewy mass. I ate everything except the energy ball which I saved for later. I was very surprised and pleased at how healthy things were – nothing had salt or extra sugar in it, and everything was very fresh. I don’t know what was in my sandwich. I remember there being cucumbers and sprouts, but I ate the whole thing in about five seconds. I also tried the mussels which were huge – fist sized – and very good.
With hardly a moment to relax, we were repacking our kayaks and launching again to go up to Tonga Island. We did much better after lunch in getting into the swing of paddling, but we were still last. Vanessa hypothesized that it was because we were two women, whereas every other boat had a guy in the back seat. Even before we reached the island, we saw a seal, but he was sunbathing and dead to the world. He did wave his flipper though. When we reached the island, we started seeing seals everywhere. They were noisily talking to each other. Some were in the water, most were on the rocks. The more you looked, the more seals you saw, but they mostly blended into the rocks. It was pretty cool. We took a few pictures, being careful to not drop the cameras in the ocean! Then, we headed for a beach far far away. It seemed to take ages to get there. The last 500 feet were the worst. We just didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Finally we made it to the beach and pulled our kayak up on shore. Scotty took us for a very short bushwalk, pointing out different plants and animals (including a pair of ducks which mate for life), and showing us a small waterfall and pond.
Then, it was back to the water taxi for a ride back to a tractor back to the home base where I ate my energy ball and changed into dry clothes. Day over. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but much was consumed by paddling, and the scenery was great. The water was an amazing color. When we got back on the bus to come back to Nelson (and other locales), the driver warned us not to fall too deeply asleep so we could tell him where we needed to get off. I thought he was kidding. When I woke up 45 minutes later, we were just outside Nelson, and had already made two other stops.
I got off the bus and walked the shortest distance possible to a restaurant that provided take-away. I had debated with myself about whether I really wanted dinner. I certainly didn’t want to make the effort to go get dinner. And I still had a twenty minute walk uphill to get back to the B&B. But I knew once I got here and showered, I’d be starving. I ended up getting a stirfry from a Thai place. The woman asked if I’d had a good day and I said yes, I’d been at Abel Tasman. She nodded appreciatively and said I’d sleep well tonight. Then she pointed me to a couch where I could sit while they prepared my food. She came over with a glass of water, for which I was very grateful. They were quick with my meal, and when I asked for a fork, she gave me a spork and a napkin. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a spork, and I don’t think I’d ever eaten Thai food with one.
Unfortunately, I ended up a little sunburned. My forearms, believe it or not. I thought that was the place that didn’t burn anymore. But up to where my tee shirt was on my upper arms and my entire forearms are quite red. Also – the backs of my hands and my knuckles burned. How weird is that?! And some other bits and places where I missed with sunscreen. Everything is just starting to hurt, so I’m sure it will be excruciating by tomorrow. I’ll have to go buy some aloe stuff. All I could do tonight is put moisturizer on it.
Overall, today ranks second in “best days of Jen’s trip”. Last Wednesday’s exploration of the Gold Coast followed by too much wine still holds the top spot for this trip.
Tomorrow, I’m hoping to get a ride into Nelson by someone at any time. If I get there too early, I’ll store my bags at the place where I did e-mail yesterday, where they’ll take them for NZ$1.50. If I get into town later instead, I’ll just go right to the bus station where I’m getting the K bus at 3:15. That will put me in Picton in time for the 6 PM ferry, which is the slow boat this time, so I’ll be back in Wellington at 9 PM, and hopefully Mary will be there to pick me up. Then, I’m anticipating posting all these, hopping in the hot tub, taking a shower, and going to bed. I’m very comfortable at the B&B in Wellington. Feels better to me than here. On Friday AM, I’m going to sleep in, have breakfast, take another shower (my last for 36 hours), and generally have a leisurely morning. I need to be at the airport by noon for my 1 PM flight, although I should double check the times. Once I get to Auckland, I have a massive layover (something like 6 hours), so I think I’ll see what I can do about getting into the city, even if it’s just to stretch my legs, have lunch not at an airport, and then get a taxi back to the international terminal. Then, onto LA, then Boston. Hooray. I’m going home soon!
In the meantime, I’m sitting in bed writing this and I feel like everything’s gently rocking and swaying. I hope that goes away before long. Too much time on the water today. I was going to watch Ice Age but I don’t think I’m going to be able to stay awake for it even though it’s just 9 now.
By the way, it occurred to me that I wouldn’t have been able to do the Abel Tasman trip without my baggage. I would have needed too many things – my Tevas which can get wet, a pair of shorts, my bathing suit, my sunscreen… So I’m glad I did the crazy back and forthing in Wellington that allowed me to catch up with my suitcase.
December. Can you believe it? I’d forgotten all today. Just realized now when I went to date this.
It’s 8 PM, the sun is shining brightly, and it’s still a gorgeous evening. However, I am dead tired, sunburnt (UGH), and about to just sit in bed and watch a movie. First, though, I’ll write up today’s adventures.
I woke up at 5:45 to my Palm Pilot alarm, still tired from last night because I had stayed up late watching Whale Rider. I absolutely HAD to see it before I went kayaking. Just in case we saw whales. I liked the movie a lot, although it veers from the book considerably in every single detail except the fact that there’s this girl and she’s the one who can communicate with whales. But to all of you, particularly those of you who have seen the movie, I now say, READ THE BOOK. Chris was right. Read the book. I have it. You can borrow it. It’s a fast read.
Got ready for the day and went out to see what the deal with breakfast was. Fruit was in the fridge, cut up and ready for me, bread for toast was on the counter. Perfect. I stuck two slices in the toaster as I paced around eating the fruit, trying to think about what else I needed to bring with me. There was some great currant or some red berry jam yesterday to have with toast, and that was there today, as well as some thick orange-yellow stuff. I thought it was honey and got very excited. Smeared it on my toast and found out it was lemon curd or something citrusy. Wasn’t what my mouth was expecting, but it was terrific, and I had it on all my toast. Made myself a cup of tea to force more liquids. If there’s one thing I’m not doing particularly well, it’s overhydrating to the extent Michael prescribed. Particularly today when I knew the bathrooms would be few and far between, and I’d be in a kayak in the middle of the sea. No use peeing in your own kayak. (Maybe in someone else’s…) When no one had appeared by 6:40, I was getting concerned. I needed to be at the bus before 7. Finally, Deb came out (I didn’t recognize her in a bathrobe and without makeup; I’d seen her for all of ten minutes two days ago when I was exhausted and ill) and said Mike was in the truck waiting. I thanked her and ran out the door. Mike and Frank (some little obnoxious dog) drove me to the bus station. I thanked them profusely.
The bus came a few minutes late, and the few of us standing there climbed on. They all had tickets, but the driver said to me, “Are you Jennifer?” and when I said that I was, he checked me off on his list. We made a few more stops to pick people up on the way to the park, and the driver did his best to tour guide us through the towns and such. He referred to those long areas of sand and muck as mud flats, with no mention of mussels, so maybe I’m just making that part up. He also pointed out where farmers were growing hops, which look slightly like grapevines, but the strings on which the vines grow are more vertical (diagonal, actually) than horizontal.
We got to our home base in Marahau around 8:40, and I checked in and paid. They had a note by my name saying “Card refused”, and I told the girl that that sort of made me nervous. But the other clerk said that she had written the note and had talked to me on the phone, so probably just took my number down wrong. Indeed, when they swiped the card through, it worked just fine. They pointed me out to go join my group, led by a young guy named Scotty. Scotty was being “assessed” today by Adam. Apparently, to lead any tour by oneself, you have to be “assessed” by a senior tour guide. Although Scotty was allowed to lead other tours, he hadn’t yet been assessed for the Tonga Island seal tour. What this meant was that we go two tour guides with the eight of us. Only two of us were traveling alone, so we paired up. Vanessa was from the UK, and although we got along well enough to not flip our kayak, I didn’t particularly like her that much.
Scotty and Adam both very much looked the part of New Zealand outdoorsy guides. If I said to you, “Imagine your guide for sea kayaking in New Zealand”, this is what you’d imagine. Both had scraggly long-ish hair, were fit, very tan, and wore jaunty hats, swim trunks, and friendly dispositions with ease. They handed out large plastic bags into which we put all of our personal belongings that were coming with us in the kayak. They also distributed waterproof camera boxes, although written all over them were the words “No guarantees”. Vanessa and I grabbed a medium sized box and put both our cameras in it. We grabbed a bag lunch, also provided. I grabbed a vegetarian one since I was pretty sure the sandwiches were going to be ham and I’d specified “no ham” over the phone the day before. We were given purple spray jackets and a life jacket and instructed to put these on for the ride in the water taxi. Geared up, we climbed onto a water taxi (basically a boat!), and a guy driving a tractor hauled us the quarter mile or so to the beach. We looked pretty ridiculous wearing life jackets while sitting on a boat being towed by a tractor, I have to say. Once at the beach, the tractor was able to drive across quite a length of sand dune to get the water taxi afloat. Scotty told us a story of another water taxi company, a start-up with only one taxi, when, in their first season of operation, the driver missed the outgoing tide by five minutes and was stranded on the sand dunes until the next tide came in. Regardless, by this point, we were off and flying along.
The water taxi delivered us, while another delivered our gear and kayaks, to a protected beach. Then, we had morning tea. Yes, we had done precisely nothing except put on life jackets and board and disembark from a water taxi, and yet already New Zealand had stopped for morning tea. Hot tea, coffee, and muffins appeared from some stash Scotty had. After tea, we were given kayak skirts and instructed in their use. These are neoprene sheets which fit tightly over the portal where you sit in the kayak. Then, there was a safety briefing which basically consisted of “here’s what to do if you tip over, which you won’t, but if you did, here’s what you’d do”, and then time for us to practice. The gist was, get yourself unattached from the kayak and come up for air. We practiced on land, by the way, not in water!! We were taught the basics of our kayaks – what the pedals were, how to release and raise the rudder, how to steer. Then, we grabbed paddles and were given some basic instruction with them, and shown two signs that our guides might make if there was a problem – one being “stop paddling”, the other being, “come to me”. With me having no preference whatsoever, Vanessa decided she’d take the back, which is the steering post. We launched ourselves, with assistance from Scotty and Adam, and we were bobbing around in the sea.
Instantly I couldn’t figure out how to paddle properly. I’d say it took me a good 15 or 20 minutes to figure out how not to exhaust myself, and exactly what angle to enter the water, and how to keep a rhythm going, and how to not bash my hands on the side of the kayak. As we got out from the beach, we got hit with some swells. We’d been told to go through waves like that head on and just keep paddling, but whenever I saw one coming, I’d get distracted by it, and stop paddling substituting nervous laughter instead, so periodically Vanessa would have to remind me to keep paddling. Slowly, we got into a rhythm, although whenever Vanessa got distracted she’d forget to steer, so we veered off course more than once. Probably due to inexperience, we were always the slow boat and everyone else was well ahead. We’d been told to stay within talking range of at least one other kayak, so they weren’t THAT far ahead, but still. Adam and Scotty were in their own one person kayaks, so one of them would always hang back with us which was nice. Of course, they’d paddle maybe three strokes and then float along just ahead of us talking to us as we pretended we were doing just fine and meanwhile were paddling madly. And when we caught up, they’d paddle another three lazy strokes and repeat the process. We paddled all morning to a protected cove called Mosquito Bay. One side was a pond that flowed into this amazing lagoon. We pulled our boats onshore and dug out our lunches. I was surprised by how wet I’d gotten. Despite the skirt, my shirt was soaking, as were my shorts, and I was glad I had my “swimming costume” (that’s swimsuit to you and me) on underneath.
Scotty cooked some local mussels for us, while some people went for a swim in the lagoon. I devoured my lunch. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. Lunch was a mushed sandwich (I’d crushed it packing it into my kayak), pasta salad with sundried tomatos, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds, and raw peas (I know that all sounds weird, but they were going for high energy), dried fruit (banana chips, dates, peanuts, raisins), an apple, a chocolate chip cookie, and what I’m calling an energy ball – it was about the size of a meatball and consisted of dates, wheatgerm, molasses(?), and other stuff, just rolled together into one solid, chewy mass. I ate everything except the energy ball which I saved for later. I was very surprised and pleased at how healthy things were – nothing had salt or extra sugar in it, and everything was very fresh. I don’t know what was in my sandwich. I remember there being cucumbers and sprouts, but I ate the whole thing in about five seconds. I also tried the mussels which were huge – fist sized – and very good.
With hardly a moment to relax, we were repacking our kayaks and launching again to go up to Tonga Island. We did much better after lunch in getting into the swing of paddling, but we were still last. Vanessa hypothesized that it was because we were two women, whereas every other boat had a guy in the back seat. Even before we reached the island, we saw a seal, but he was sunbathing and dead to the world. He did wave his flipper though. When we reached the island, we started seeing seals everywhere. They were noisily talking to each other. Some were in the water, most were on the rocks. The more you looked, the more seals you saw, but they mostly blended into the rocks. It was pretty cool. We took a few pictures, being careful to not drop the cameras in the ocean! Then, we headed for a beach far far away. It seemed to take ages to get there. The last 500 feet were the worst. We just didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Finally we made it to the beach and pulled our kayak up on shore. Scotty took us for a very short bushwalk, pointing out different plants and animals (including a pair of ducks which mate for life), and showing us a small waterfall and pond.
Then, it was back to the water taxi for a ride back to a tractor back to the home base where I ate my energy ball and changed into dry clothes. Day over. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but much was consumed by paddling, and the scenery was great. The water was an amazing color. When we got back on the bus to come back to Nelson (and other locales), the driver warned us not to fall too deeply asleep so we could tell him where we needed to get off. I thought he was kidding. When I woke up 45 minutes later, we were just outside Nelson, and had already made two other stops.
I got off the bus and walked the shortest distance possible to a restaurant that provided take-away. I had debated with myself about whether I really wanted dinner. I certainly didn’t want to make the effort to go get dinner. And I still had a twenty minute walk uphill to get back to the B&B. But I knew once I got here and showered, I’d be starving. I ended up getting a stirfry from a Thai place. The woman asked if I’d had a good day and I said yes, I’d been at Abel Tasman. She nodded appreciatively and said I’d sleep well tonight. Then she pointed me to a couch where I could sit while they prepared my food. She came over with a glass of water, for which I was very grateful. They were quick with my meal, and when I asked for a fork, she gave me a spork and a napkin. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a spork, and I don’t think I’d ever eaten Thai food with one.
Unfortunately, I ended up a little sunburned. My forearms, believe it or not. I thought that was the place that didn’t burn anymore. But up to where my tee shirt was on my upper arms and my entire forearms are quite red. Also – the backs of my hands and my knuckles burned. How weird is that?! And some other bits and places where I missed with sunscreen. Everything is just starting to hurt, so I’m sure it will be excruciating by tomorrow. I’ll have to go buy some aloe stuff. All I could do tonight is put moisturizer on it.
Overall, today ranks second in “best days of Jen’s trip”. Last Wednesday’s exploration of the Gold Coast followed by too much wine still holds the top spot for this trip.
Tomorrow, I’m hoping to get a ride into Nelson by someone at any time. If I get there too early, I’ll store my bags at the place where I did e-mail yesterday, where they’ll take them for NZ$1.50. If I get into town later instead, I’ll just go right to the bus station where I’m getting the K bus at 3:15. That will put me in Picton in time for the 6 PM ferry, which is the slow boat this time, so I’ll be back in Wellington at 9 PM, and hopefully Mary will be there to pick me up. Then, I’m anticipating posting all these, hopping in the hot tub, taking a shower, and going to bed. I’m very comfortable at the B&B in Wellington. Feels better to me than here. On Friday AM, I’m going to sleep in, have breakfast, take another shower (my last for 36 hours), and generally have a leisurely morning. I need to be at the airport by noon for my 1 PM flight, although I should double check the times. Once I get to Auckland, I have a massive layover (something like 6 hours), so I think I’ll see what I can do about getting into the city, even if it’s just to stretch my legs, have lunch not at an airport, and then get a taxi back to the international terminal. Then, onto LA, then Boston. Hooray. I’m going home soon!
In the meantime, I’m sitting in bed writing this and I feel like everything’s gently rocking and swaying. I hope that goes away before long. Too much time on the water today. I was going to watch Ice Age but I don’t think I’m going to be able to stay awake for it even though it’s just 9 now.
By the way, it occurred to me that I wouldn’t have been able to do the Abel Tasman trip without my baggage. I would have needed too many things – my Tevas which can get wet, a pair of shorts, my bathing suit, my sunscreen… So I’m glad I did the crazy back and forthing in Wellington that allowed me to catch up with my suitcase.
posted by Jen at 8:57 PM
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