Abel Tasman National Park

Waking up in Mapua meant we weren't too far from Abel Tasman; the drive was less than an hour. At the edge of the park we rented kayaks for the day from Marahau kayaks, where we received a lovely introductory lesson that kind of reminded me of Spring Camp.

Once we were on the water though, we were surrounded by beauty. We paddled to our very own private beach for lunch, then spent a few hours exploring the area. A storm brought us in a little earlier than we'd hoped, but our couple of hours of sunshine had been incredible.

Letting the kayaks have a break on the beach

After our kayaks had been loaded onto tractors and driven back to land across the 200m beach that had appeared during low tide, we packed back into the Dragon and drove south toward Murchison. We spent the night at the Kawatiri Historic Railway campsite which I thought was pretty cool. We even got to walk through an old train tunnel! The site's only downfall were the sand flies (which are similar to a black fly in Ontario - small, jumpy, and can inflict a painful and itchy bite!). At the time, we had no idea that we'd be seeing a lot more sand flies on our trip.

What's on the other side?