Last stop in South Island.

110 m swing bridge.. nope not scared.

WHOOO Hoooo

The finish of our kayak trip .

We left Westport with a relieved German family in our rear view mirror, and headed for Nelson, It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. We followed a spectacular gorge and river the whole way, stopping at Buller's Gorge an old gold mining site.. It has the longest swing bridge in New Zealand crossing a raging icy river... we decided to walk/crawl across it and bounce each other up and down, whilst shouting 'stop.. stop it ' We had a walk around the gold mining site and decided to take the zip wire back to the other side.. now what a jolly good idea.. we were strapped into our harnesses, and decided on the tandem zip as it is 'quicker' OMG  we whizzed back across the raging river at lightening speed.. me screaming, Brian whooping and a hollering .. I was still shaking an hour later ..

teachers pet and side kick

We arrived in Nelson and wandered around the uneventful town, through a lame botanical garden and booked our kayak trip for the next day.. then back to the camper to make our sarnies and get ready, boy am I looking forward to it..

Anchorage Bay

We were up and very much at it the next day, very early, and waited for our bus to pick us up, we waited with an extremely dull Swiss guy who seemingly had had his ear cut off and sewn on again !! maybe he was like Van Gogh !!! or had ear cataracts or something, anyway ... the bus arrived and our group for the day clambered on..a Dutch guy who had hair like Chewbacka .. to which Brian kept groaning like.. and filling me on the role chewbacka played in star wars and the general life of a wookie..two fat american students who had had a huge row and were not speaking and sat in different seats, 2 Taiwanese who did not know each other, a very boring German called Rupert and a weird English girl called Karina.... do you know it's a good job we are completely normal !!- I wonder what people write about us in their journals....we arrived at Abel Tasman national park to meet our guide Gloria .. G.L.O.R.I.A ....who lost control of the group immediately, people wandering off, Taiwanese chatting, it was carnage... she then made us all play this painful ice breaking game of telling our name, country and something interesting about ourselves.. oh man... it makes me cringe just thinking about it.. so ya I am Rupert from Germany, I want to know why zis national park is so famous !!! he had bought his GPS with him and kept checking our co-ordinates all the time .
etc... so my turn came !! Hi I am Gabby from UK , I have been in Jail for murder for the last 15 years, have had a sex change and used to be Graham , .... ( tumble weed ) .... we eventually got our kit sorted and jumped into a tractor trailer with our kayaks and trundled off to a gorgeous beach..  this is where it all got a bit frantic... the safety brief was well ... brief and Brian suddenly became teachers pet ...helping girls into there spray skirts, doing up lifejackets, rubbing in sun cream !!!! meanwhile I had been chosen as the volunteer to demonstrate how to get out the sodding thing, and was stranded in my kayak , being tossed around like a salad....The Taiwanese had clearly been booked on the wrong trip, were wearing jeans and looked a little wide eyed at getting into a Kayak.... the steering with the feet for the rudder was as foreign to them as using a knife and fork !!!!, they were quickly in trouble and neither were paddling or steering... the guide left us beached , Brian was trying to get us launched and get his spray skirt on.. we then realised we had not put our rudder down ... so back to the beach ... meanwhile everyone else was happily paddling off into the surf with all of Brians help.....no bother !!!!!

Pant beard

The Taiwanese were really struggling so it was decided to swap a yank with a Taiwanese ... like a Mc Suey combo ...this worked a treat as the yanks were not speaking anyway....  it was all a bit fraught and frantic with all the faffing about !! so we were really having to work the guns against wind and tide!!  However ... it was beautiful, blue glacial sea, fringed by perfect forest headlands, stingrays and manta rays gliding underneath us stealth like, seals on rocks and penguins swimming to catch fish.. it was awesome... we eventually beached on a perfect sandy cove , like a fingernail strip of sand , and had our well earned sweaty damp tuna sandwich !!! this is where we left our trip as we had decided on a half day hike then water taxi home !!! it was very very steep but the views were fantastic ... the beach we were headed for was Anchorage !! no not in Alaska but it may as well have been is seemed that far !! the beach was wonderful and we found a lovely nook to lay down and doze, it's times like these I wish I had given the old lady garden a bit more attention !! only to be woken by a German father singing an irritating rhyme to his son in German which had us humming it into late in the night .. our water taxi came , but hold on , 3 people missing and we were the last boat home !! what to do ? - yep we left them and endured a 20 minute rodeo ride back to base where our bus was waiting for us back to the site.

Picton

Its 1st Dec and can only imagine the rows over who is going to open the first door on the advent calender.. not long now kiddos.. . We had a glorious drive to Picton, along the Queen Charlotte Drive, stopping at numerous anchorages for photos, it is as if someone has clawed a chunk of land away and left it as natural harbour, now 40 shades of blue ... We arrived in Picton, the port between the North island and the South Island, most port towns are awful, i.e Dover.. but this is perfect, in natural harbour, forest cliffs and headlands, clear blue sea, lovely cafes and restaurants, not a burger van in site !! we walked into the marina and booked our trips for the following day and found our way to the aquarium.. I was keen to go in as they had some seahorses in there... One of the males was heavily pregnant, yes the male !!!! oh you could almost hear him, rubbing his back, moaning how uncomfortable he is and can't get comfy, wanting a hot bath and a curry !!!

Blonde lady in black dress..

After this we treated ourselves to a pint of the blonde lady in the black dress, and back to the site to get ready for our trips..

Common dolphins.

Ready !!! 

Check that out .. awesome..

Couple of winos

The best day of our trip so far, we went to the marina to get kitted out in thick wetsuits, booties, snorkels and masks, and boarded our lovely boat for the trip out to the Marlborough Sounds, it was a lovely day but the sea was a bit choppy.. After 20 minutes we spotted a pod of common dolphins, very uncommon here this was the 6th sighting this year so a very happy crew, they swam away from us, so we moved on as we are not to chase them , they must come to us !! we then spotted a bottle nosed dolphin with her calf, and although showed some interest , not enough... we headed out into the beautiful sound, and turned around, disheartened that our opportunity was over for swimming with them, we had at least seen two types... but hang on a cotton picking minute.... a pod of dusky dolphins were spotted , about 15 of them, and they were following us , clearly wanting to play... it was all a bit frantic, getting masks on and getting into the freezing water, it really took your breath away.. it was pretty scary, we were in the middle of the sea, freezing cold, high seas, deep deep water, poor visibility, and we had our heads in the water, clicking and singing to attract a pod of 15 dolphin swimming at 40 miles per hour !!!! then they came, it was utterly unbelievable, they were loving it, darting under us, leaping over us, twisting and turning, I saw a calf feeding from her mother, a couple mating at speed, ( dolphin porn ) there were so many my mask was full of tears at the pure sight of it ... when we quietened down, they swam off, as we made more noise they all came back, swimming between us ... Brian got some great video clips from the boat... we were soon all getting very cold, and the tide was pushing us away from the boat.. so reluctantly we climbed aboard.. the dolphins followed us for another mile or so, playing in the bow waves.. the crew said it was the best display they had ever seen... must have been my singing.. it was a breath taking moment , I loved every second... after hot chocolate and biscuits and change of clothes we were back in the harbour, eating fish and chips and waiting for our half day wine tour ...

Blenheim

I was still a bit numb emotionally and physically so I didn't really care what I was drinking on this fab wine tour around Blenheim and sipping lovely Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs. We were with a really nice bunch of people and the craic was good.. We visited 4 different cellars and bought lots of yummy wine, the vineyards in rows with the mountains in the background, made for a wonderful afternoon... it was soon back to the van exhausted to dream of dolphins...
It was up early the next day to catch our ferry to the North Island, we had upgraded to the VIP lounge, but the journey was so breathtaking we only kept popping in to eat free food and drink ....

Rail deck for Ethan xx

Goodbye South Island .....

The ferry was lovely, and had a rail deck on the lower floor which I went down to investigate, pretty cool, rolling stock comes on. then is rolled off !!! thought Ethan would think that was pretty cool !!!! we journeyed out through the Marlborough sounds spotting more dolphins and working our way around islands. How Captain James Cook ever found his way into here is a mystery, we fondly left the South Island behind us and are very much looking forward to our 2 weeks in the North..