New Years Eve and kayaking Abel Tasman

Happy New Year! As we are writing this the new year has come to Sweden as well, twelve hours after us (although we still can not figure out why its twelve hours and not eleven like it is supposed to be). Got back, sore, tired and beaten up, from the kayaking trip (more on that below) of Abel Tasman, and arrived at the hostel only one or so hour before Annica and Erik were gonna pick us up by taxi at our hostel, so it was a bit stressful, but we managed to get done just in time.

The Boatshed Cafe, where we had dinner on New Years Eve

We had made a reservation at a place called The Boatshed Cafe, which was located at the waterfront of Nelson, looking out over the Tasman Bay, and where we had an orgy in lamb consisting of, among other things, the tounge of a (tortured?) lamb. It was delicious, and not just the tounge, but everything, and wonderfully presented as well. The by far strangest dish of the evening was Annica's Ostrich and Chocolate Ice Cream, that she had as an entree. Not just the combination was weird, but ice cream as an entree...?

Eating desserts

The dinner was wonderful, and afterwards, we had gotten word that there would be a free concert in the middle of Nelson (at Trafalgar Sq), where a New Zealand band called The Phoenix Foundation would play and bring in the New Year, so we grabbed a taxi and headed there. First time ever this happened, but as Joakim was paying the cab, the taxi driver lowered his own tip...

Taxi driver: Thats 9.82 dollars
Joakim handing over a 20 dollar bill: Just give me 8 back
Taxi driver: How about I give you 10 dollars back.
Joakim: ... uhmm, yeah ok...

The band put on a good show, and today, if the stores are open, we might even buy a CD. As they brought in the New Year, what we think was supposed to pass for fireworks went off, but what it actually looked like was as if someone threw "tomtebloss" up in the air behind the band. Not very impressive, but funny :) In response to the "magical" fireworks display, we couldn't very well make a new years toast in champagne, so we toasted in this really weird New Zealand Summer Ale, which was spiced with honey. It wasn't bad, it was just different, and just right for the moment.

In front of the stage on the steps of the Cathedral at Trafalgar Sq

The band jammed for some time after ut had turned 2009, and then left the stage. At which point we all headed home to our respective hostels. Now, we hade changed hostel since we stayed in Nelson before the kayaking trip, and this new hostel was located a little bit outside of town... and to be honest, we actually had no clue as to where it was located. We asked for some directions, heard like the first two or three parts of the multipart directions, and then just started walking aimlessly. The weird thing is, despite having no clue as to where the hostel was, despite not knowing if we were going in the right direction, and despite not really having heard the directions, we managed to find our hostel after some time wandering around, and passed out.

Boozing up with honey spiced summer ale... pure class

The "tolvslaget"

So that was our New Years, and a good one it was :)

However, before we celebrated New Years, we were out kayaking in the Abel Tasman National Park for two days, with a guide called Luke, and a group consisting of 5 englishmen, and one norwegian.

Alriiiight girls! Here I am sporting a spray skirt (by Sea Bear NZ $1950), a bouyancy device (by Kiwi Kayaks, $775), hat (by Åhlens, $0), and non fake Brisbane flip flops

Paddling away, heading into Anchorage

The norwegian guy had cycled all the way from the northern most point of the North Island in one month, and was now on his two month cycling of the northern most point of the South Island to the southern most point. And the englishmen were hilarious. Would not shut up for one second, constantly a little bit intoxicated on wine, and just cracking joke after joke the whole time in that dry, funny, intelligent way which only english people can be. It was honestly like being stuck in an english comedy show ala Monthy Python or Fawlty Towers.

The back side of our guide, Luke

We started paddling the first day up the coast, from a place called Marahau and eventually later that day ended up at a place called Anchorage where we set up camp. This part of the kayaking trip was easy and fun, and the weather was great. Once in Anchorage, and once our tent was up, we headed out over a dried up "lake" (due to the tide), for a place called Cleopatras Pool, which was located approx 1 hour inland. It was basically a waterfall, that ended in a pool, where you could go swimming and where mother nature had carved out a natural water slide in the mountain where you could just jump in and get carried by the water into the pool. The water was really cold, but really refreshing after a day of paddling.

Mmmmmmm yummy!

Got back to camp and started preparing for dinner. Since we had the uncatered tour (which apparently did not differ that much from the catered according to Erik and Annica... who told us they got "potato and rice" as their last dinner :) ), we had to bring our own food. So, we joyfully scooped up three cans of "Big Eat Spagehetti Bolognese". When cooking up this delicious meal, half of it accidently got on the table, upon which we just scooped it back in the pan hoping it would add to the flavour. We werent really expecting it to taste good, and true to our expectations it didn't. But it was food nonetheless...

Did you already eat, or are you about to?

Day two, upon heading out into open water, the weather got progressively worse. We managed to paddle out to an island with a seal colony, where a seal swam right by our boat, before heading back to the mainland and realizing that we would not be able to continue further north. So instead, we headed into this sheltered place, and instead paddled up a river, before finally heading into shore again, setting up a temporary tent for lunch.

Temporary lunch camp, and almost all of group

View from lunch camp, before it started raining

Our guide arranged for the boat to pick us up from a different place, closer to where we had lunch, because the wind got stronger, and it started raining. However, we still had to break camp and paddle out in open water for 30-40 minutes to get to our pickup point. The waves were really high, and it rained so much that you almost could not see where you were going. It was also lots of fun, but we're glad we only had to spend a short time doing it because it was exhausting.

But we managed to get ashore, got pickup up by a water taxi, that brought us all the way back to Marahau, where we got coffee/tea and some cookies :)

Today we are just going to hang around and take it easy in Nelson, cooking some food later tonight, and not really do anything. Weather is great, and Nelson is a cozy place. Unfortunately, Joakims "lambocide" will have to take a days rest today, but after devourering what seemed like a whole lamb yesterday, it seems only right.

Tomorrow we'll head for Christchurch, where we only have a Dolphin swimming trip planned. Since we have a couple of days there before heading on, we're just gonna see what there is to do, and see what happens.

Finally, our guide Luke taught us this thing in Maori that you are supposed to say as you are about to leave. It means "The Shags neck is stretched out". The Shag is a common bird here, and when it is stretching out its neck, it means it is getting ready to fly away.

Here it is in Maori (although we are not really sure of the last word :) )Kamoto, te kakei, te ka owakai

And it is pronounced like this... and read it with a rilly hivvy Kiwi iccint to git it right:Car motor, te car key, te car oh wah kay

Cheers, big ears!