Jan 23 – We had a morning at home taking care of some admin items and generally enjoying our huge AirBnB apartment. There’s no laundry machine, but it does have its own trifecta of king bed, oven, and dishwasher (there’s also no microwave! Bron’s family never had one growing up, but we’ve become very adept at microwave cooking as it’s often all a hotel room has….. it’s a bit of an adjustment. I’ll just heat these leftovers up….. oh wait……).
In the afternoon we headed off for a hike at Whispering Falls. The trailhead was up a beautiful winding road with many families having a swim at various waterholes on this hot day. The hike was lovely along a river bank. There were a couple of slips taking out the track however. The first one we carefully sidled around, but the second looked newer, was quite a drop to the river, and we were both very hot already so decided to turn around.
Jan 24 – The plan for today was a day trip to Nelson Lake’s National Park. It was a wonderful drive on fun roads for just over an hour. On the recommendation of the info center staff we popped up to a lookout over the Alpine Fault. It was a fantastic view and very obvious. In the valley across the lake from us, is Alpine Fault – the meeting point between the Australasian Tectonic Plant and The Pacific Plate. We will see this fault again in a few locations in the Southern Alps.
We needed a decent training hike for our upcoming Able Tasman trek so (also on the recommendation of the visitors center) went along the Lakeside trail to Whiskey Falls. It was an excellent trail – mostly cruisy track through beautiful old forest, but a few challenges of rock slides, roots, stream crossings, etc. to make it interesting.
We had a snack lunch at the falls and met the second set of people who thought Bron was a Kiwi even after Brent said he was from Canada. Perhaps they won’t notice if we just stay then…. it definitely feels like it could be home.
Bron continues to surprise me in her Kiwi transformation and has U-shifted her vowel pronunciations to assimilate. This is how the conversation sounds: Q – How much was that bag of coffee at Countdown? A – Sux dullers und fufty. 🙂
Jan 25 – The first activity we’ve paid for in New Zealand so far (I think)! Today we went kayaking at Cable Bay.
We love paddling but rarely actually make it happen. Cable Bay kayaks had great equipment and the guide was really good. The tour was just us and one other couple from Denmark. We paddled through a lot of caves including one in which we had to put the paddles alongside the kayak and push our way through because it was so narrow. We saw tons of sea birds (although a lot of them were just seagulls), and some frolicking NZ fur seals. After a couple KMs we landed at a beach and had a swim and tea time, and a nice chat with the British guide (Gwyn – from Stratford-upon-Avon) and the Danish couple because we were all travellers!
*photos taken by Gwyn from Cable Bay Kayaks
All too soon it was time to head back. We were out for about 3 hours and loved it – but will both feel the rarely used muscles tomorrow.
We’ve been very disciplined at cooking all of our own food in the past month or so, but we treated ourselves to a nice late lunch in Nelson overlooking the river. Followed up by a stroll in the Japanese Garden.
More hiking tomorrow I hope!
Earthquake overnight – 11:45pm The most reported shake event in recent history. Here is a link to the quake reports from GeoNet. GeoNet We didn’t feel it – or we would have mentioned it when we called home Grandma.
Brent And Bron Abroad 