Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Kayak trip

Happy new year!! How long is appropriate to keep saying that as a greeting? :)

Over the new year's weekend we went to stay at Kaiteriteri Beach and rented kayaks for a half-day trek up toward the Abel Tasman National Park. It was a gloomy morning weather-wise, and we did pretty much freeze our behinds off, but it was great fun to be out on the quiet, open water with such wonderous scenery.

We took this as we returned to Kaiteriteri, but we also left from here, so I'll use it as a starter. Digital cameras don't do wide shots too well, at least our basic Canon doesn't.




Our north-westernmost destination was Split Apple Rock, a famous iconic landmark at the starting point of the Abel Tasman National Park. Birds find this a great place to sit and take in the views as well.




That is, when they aren't sitting in the trees nearby and pooping their acid-laced poop and killing the trees. Yes, these birds are funky birds that have killer poop and you can tell which trees on the coast they like to sit in.




Turning around a bit, we saw our first boat of the morning, a huge catamaran out for a tour with folks passing by Split Apple Rock.





I tried to get a shot of it closer up, but as you can tell we were dealing with decent swells and I could never get the darn thing in the middle of the shot, I tried several times and this is my best effort!




Of course the problem with the camera couldn't be me, it had to be the camera, so I got a lovely shot of me trying to figure out the darn thing. Turns out it was an ID - 10 - T error.






We decided to head into this beach to get out of the kayaks near the mid-point of our morning and have a rest. Drying off was on the wish-list, but wasn't an option this wet morning. The nice thing was that we warmed our hands by sticking them into the warm top layer of the water!



Ever the explorer, Don was certain he saw something of great interest, perhaps a discovery no one had yet made in this vast wilderness land on the quiet shore. Oh wait, he's just posing.





Quick picture of ourselves and then we were off. However, we decided to shove off during very high swells and the kayak drank some water, my seat got drenched, and we pulled back only to start again after actually assessing the waves first, this time, and shooting for smaller swells. Old pros.



We found many, many wonderful coves like this throughout all the bays we explored. Some had their own cutie little beaches too. The water throughout the trip, as is the case for most of Abel Tasman, is truly this lovely aqua/blue/green color everywhere.




I call this rabbit head bay with that funny rock.











Turning around in rabbit head bay we see through to Kaiteriteri Beach and going around the bend we made our way back to shore, exploring the boats anchored close to shore as well.

3 Comments:

At Thu Jan 04, 07:01:00 pm NZDT, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What a great trip and the pictures are outstanding. What fun for you guys. Dad & Mom

 
At Fri Jan 05, 04:56:00 am NZDT, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love that Split Apple Rock!
--Mom in Santa Fe

 
At Thu Mar 01, 06:01:00 am NZDT, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jungle writes: looking forward to more about your exciting office life! Sounds like a great place to work... :-)

 

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