New Zealand - Kaikoura (II) & Moteuka (Abel Tasman)

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New Zealand - South Island - Kaikoura (2nd time) and Moteuka in the Abel Tasman

21st - 26th March

Today was Good Friday and I’d settled on attending the only Protestant Church I could find here in Kaikoura, a small wooden Anglican Church which looked like it was built 100 years or so ago. The service was very good and focussed on the real issues of Easter in the context of sacrifice and grace as opposed to making us feel inappropriately comfortable.

The afternoon was to be used for the Dolphin sight-seeing tour I‘d booked the previous afternoon, however the fog was so thick I could barley see the sea from the shore itself. :eek I checked if the tour would still be operating to which I was assured that the area where we were to view the Dolphins was apparently fine. I found it hard to believe as we were only going to the Southern side of the land point where we were. However, on the coach ride to the boat I saw the weather completely change to a warm clear sunny afternoon in around 5 minutes. We all remarked at such an incredible transformation in such a short distance & time.

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The transition from heavy fog to this was near miraculous.

We set off to sea and we were soon treated to sighting some Hector dolphins(which are the smallest & shyest of the Dolphin family). We stopped briefly to take a look but as soon as the boast stopped they were off.

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Our brief encounter with the Hector Dolphins.

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We continued on again and found ourselves in a number of pods of Dusky Dolphins which inhabit the area. Dusky Dolphins are the most playful and we saw them do all sorts of acrobatics from the boat. The trip is primarily an encounter trip which is dedicated to people swimming with the Dolphins. As I’d seen the majority of the other passengers get kitted up on the mainland I had a twinge of ‘should I have too?’ :confused: ignoring for the moment that there were no places left anyway !! I finally satisfied myself with the fact that if the encounter really was that good that I would wait a day or two and go myself. In the end I managed to capture a few good shots of the Dolphins but decided that they generally were just too quickly moving on after a second or twos interaction with a swimmer for it to be appealing to me, albeit still being slightly tempted. I’d met a German traveller and we exchanged quite a few stories on the boat and in the end we had dinner together in a local bar/café where we shared many more travelling stories.

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The Dusky Dolphins.

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A Passing Albatross.

The following day I had planned to leave Kaikoura but was a little unsure if that was what I really wanted to do. However, on reflection in the morning I wasn’t enjoying the cramped-ness of so many tents and people in such a small space and the weather wasn’t that appealing either so I packed up the tent and car much quicker than the bike and left for the Nelson region in the Abel Tasman.

En-route I’d been told that there was an excellent aircraft museum at Blenheim which was roughly half way, so when I saw the road signs, I decided to go. The displays were excellent and are more like movie-sets than a traditional museum. The museum is part-owned by a famous Kiwi film Director, Peter Jackson, so that would explain the excellence and reality of display. I had a snack & coffee at the museum. All were very cheap-tasting or bitter which was disappointing after the display being so good. The only nice edible thing there came in the form of a sweet formed in the shape of an aeroplane to accompany my coffee which amused me.(see picture below)

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Some of the exhibits at the Museum at Blenhiem.

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This scene depicted the final demise of the Red Baron with a British soldier taking his boots whilst the other soldiers souvenir hunted. (Apparently the German issue Pilot boots were very warm.)

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Note the position of the propellor separating the Pilot from his Navigator...... :yikes:

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I guess it must have happened. :yikes:

I set off again and soon hit the outskirts of Nelson. Having studied the map, Moteuka looked like the best base for the region and happily had a Top Ten camp site which I headed for. I arrived at around 17:00 & checked in, initially wary about the site but very much rewarded by one of the most peaceful campsites I’ve stayed at anywhere. (Even in the morning the children staying didn’t make any noise until around 08:00 !) I did some shopping and checked out the local Anglican church for service times for Easter Sunday. I then had dinner and spent the rest of the day catching up on some e-mail correspondence before retiring.

It had been pretty cold in the night despite 2 sleeping bags and a t-shirt. It didn’t completely ruin my sleep but did puncture a few holes in it !! Today was Easter Sunday and so I visited the Church I’d checked out yesterday which held a very good service, and , like Good Friday, avoided making it a fluffy comfortable occasion, focussing on the cost of being a Christian in response to the Easter message.

Later I looked at the many trips on offer at the Abel Tasman including sky-diving, kayaking, micro light, trekking, swimming with seals and any combination of them. It took me quite a while to decide initially upon swimming with seals. Having ‘missed’ the opportunity at Kaikoura twice to swim with either a seal or a Dolphin I wasn’t going to let it slip through my fingers again. As the seal point around Tonga Island is quite a long way up the Abel Tasman coastline I thought the trip would also give me the opportunity to survey the coast line as well ( as you are taken along the coast by water-taxi as there are no roads in the national park.) to see if it ‘deserved’ a closer inspection by foot and/or Kayak. That decision concluded I set about making another new web update for this site.

The following morning I got up early to go for the seal swimming trip. Our guide was known as John “The Walrus”, a Gentle-man in his 60’s who was soft-spoken, very kind and patient with everyone. We got kitted up in our wet suits and masks etc and boarded our Taxi, which was then towed by a tractor along the road to the sea and our launching point, all without ever having to get off the boat .

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The area of the 'Taxi' rank. :D

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The most complete Taxi service I've ever experienced. You never needed to disembark from the boat from the begining to the end of the trip. (except for swimming with the seals. :rolleyes:...I knew there'd be one ! :D)

We launched off, and barring stopping to participate in some bizarre sea-ritual around a pole in the sea, we headed to Tonga Island which took around 45 or so minutes. Within a few minutes of arriving at the Island we could see some seals on the rocks, and almost as soon as John slipped into the sea off the boat, the seals started to come towards him. I was ‘impressed’. We swam around with them for 5 or 10 minutes and then John wanted us to move on to a cove. Initially I was disappointed as I couldn’t see the point of moving from an area that ‘already’ had seals in it. However, as we entered the cove we were ‘welcomed’ by around 20-30 seal pups, perhaps even more. These guys were curious and were swimming all around us-it was hard to know whether to look on or under the water as both were so entertaining and engaging. We spent an hour or so with them and the guaranteed hour (we’d been promised) passed very quickly. In fact, we probably got more than an hour but it still seemed to have gone very fast. Nobody wanted to leave in the end and John had to draw us back to the boat.

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Split Apple rock is one of the land marks of the Abel Tasman coast line. Apparently a couple somehow managed to get a sofa into the split and sat there having 'tea' a few years back ! :D

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One of our first seal sitings.

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A shot of me appreciating the seals, taken not far from the bay where the seal pups were. I was very dissapointed that my Olympus water-logged 'water-proof' camera failed me otherwise I would have had some excellent shots. I'm still gutted and angry at Olmypus's attitude. :spitfire

John has developed his role as “The Walrus” into a story-teller as well, and did short sketches throughout the trip where he would impersonate Bull, Cow & pup seals using accents and attitudes from English ladies and scientists to name but a few !!. There was a German family with us who had three boys-I think they thought he’d lost the plot, however I think that this sort of ‘fun’ has been lost somewhere in the video-age and along with it the gentle wisdom that can be imparted from an older man.

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John 'The Walrus' telling one of his stories.

We were given one more opportunity to swim and I still had enough energy and so went for it. The trip concluded and I returned back to the campsite well and truly knackered. I had a cup of tea, sat in the car and allowed myself to fall asleep-the only thing that woke me was my own snoring. I slept for around an hour or so no wanting to ‘spoil’ that nights sleep. Dinner was followed by some Internet time which was duly followed by a film, in this case, ‘The Queen’ which (if you haven’t seen it) is an interesting portrayal of Tony Blair’s involvement with the Queen and Royal Family just after gaining office as Prime Minister and at the time of Diana’s death. Quite a few of us watched it in the camp-site TV room and as one Canadian lady put it, We’re all royals at heart !(I know some of you won’t agree with that though.)

I woke up the next day from a very rough nights sleep in which I just couldn’t seem to switch off and was very cold. Finally I got up at around 9, took a shower, drank a couple of teas, had breakfast and started to feel a bit better.

This day was committed to making 2 web updates which I managed to achieve barring the photos for the second one which I couldn’t load due to a technical limit with the photo-storage company we use. (They did however give me a complimentary account so I could continue to upload the trips pictures the following day).

As the day had worn on my long-standing desire/fear of flying in a Micro-light battle started as a result of a very nice looking flight opportunity over the Abel Tasman. I was also considering trekking & Kayaking the Abel Tasman but wasn’t particularly inspired by them as I’d already taken these two options a fair few number of times before. As I wrestled with my options I knew an opportunity to fly in a micro-light, in such good weather, was unlikely to come again so I called and booked an early morning flight. The company sounded very professional & serious(in a good way) about what they do and I went to bed confident of who they were. I had initially intended to leave tomorrow but decided to stay one more day so I could relax after the flight…and do my washing and upload the photos !!

Later in the evening I rang Sylvia & my Mum and read Bill Brysons ‘Down Under’ before turning my camp light off and falling asleep.

Today was micro-light flight day. I’d slept pretty well and so was as ready as I was ever going to be driving down to the airport. The actual company was very professional and gave me a near-new jump suit to wear to keep me warm, gloves & a very clean helmet & intercom system. My pilot was called Guy and was around 37/38, very friendly & professional. We got kitted up and went and sat in the Micro-light, they are small but quite comfortable once you're strapped in. I was relieved to discover that their intercom system worked far far better than our Autocom !!

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The 'Flying Toboggan'.

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It was actually quite comfortable once I was strapped in.

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It even had dials and things !! :D

We spent a few minutes warming the engine up and then we were off down the run-way. No sooner had we got a bit of speed up, we were in the air and climbing very quickly. I was quite taken aback. However we flew quite low for the first 5 mins or so and in that time I got a bit more used to being in the air in a flying toboggan !! Guy then did a large turn manouver over a beach area to see how I found it, that is a full 360 turn with the micro-light banked over. I was ok but it was right at the limit of my comfort zone. We then climbed to around 1000m which seemed much higher than usual and surprisingly scary-Kayaks were barely visible BUT the view of the Abel Tasman was great. We followed the coast line up to almost where I went swimming with the seals the other day and turned in towards some forested areas...where after doing some very nice swoops between the hills & trees I got to fly it for myself, for around 5-10 mins. It's more fun than flying a plane as it’s so much easier and you’re so much more out-there.

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After a very short trip down the runway it was ......

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...uuuuuuup....uup, up & away ! :yikes:

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Some of the views on the flight outward along the coast of the Abel Tasman.

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An in-flight shot....just to prove to myself that I did do it..:eek ....that is my brain ever recovers from the shock ! :D

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We started to bank around for our return flight at this point.

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Flying out over and between the forests was great fun. :D

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Nearer the end of the flight I was a bit more relaxed and started to more enjoy having such good visibilty and the flight in general. We flew back to the airport and landed. The landing was as quick as the take-off, one minute you're in the sky, the next you're almost back down on the ground again...travelling very fast..and then you're down. Just like that !

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Safetly back on Terra Firma!! :D

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Another 'Student' about to safetly land.

We had a nice chat afterwards and I seriously considered going up in a hang glider that afternoon with him.(apparently it as close as you can ever get to being like a bird ! ) In the end I decided to do it somewhere else as my senses were still busy catching up with the experience a good few hours and days afterwards.

So, all-in-all, an excellent experience that I'd like to do again. I'd also like to have another go at flying one as well. It was that good !!

Near to where I was camping was a young man who turned out to be German. Jonas had been waiting for some of his fellow-country men to collect him from the camp-site but had had problems with their vehicle and hadn’t been able to get there. Having seen him about for the past few days I wondered if he may have got himself into a bit of a rut in the waiting process I asked him if he’d like a lift to somewhere along the West Coast. After an evenings consideration he confirmed he’d like the lift and was prepared to contribute to the fuel costs, for which I was grateful. The intention was for him to travel with me to the Glaciers.

Mike.
 


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