We hit the Abel Tasman National Park in the North of the South Island hoping to get some sea kayak action as we had been lead to believe that the Abel Tasman was THE place for kayaking. The weather was a bit touch and go so we hung around for a bit crossing our fingers and filling in the time by visitng Pupu springs and going on short walks (Matt is not a fan so I've got to find short ones if I want to go on any...) until the skies cleared and the sun came out, which it eventually did.
We located our company of choice which turned out to be the smallest operator in the area which pleased me as I like to support the small guys. Our instructor gave us a full safety briefing before testing us on our emergency skills (which were as complicated as pulling a bit of rope!) should we capsize (thank god we didn't, it was still pretty chilly!). We passed and he declared us fit and able to go on our own into the big ocean. It was 'flat as' so we weren't too worried and merrily paddled out into the first of many bays. Oh yeah, the rather confusing title of this post is the phrase used to remind us on how to paddle properly, the right side of the paddle was to move in and out of the water like scooping up chocolate ice cream whilst the left side was to be pushed forward like we were punching someone (preferably someone you disliked - we were probably thinking of each other at this point) on the nose - you had to be there and to do it to understand...
Matt with 'Split Apple Rock' behind him.
Me trying to look cool in my big life jacket.
After a few disagreements on speed and direction (I was map reader and wanted to get some exercise out of it) we managed to cover quite a lot of distance and had lunch on a little sandy island in the middle of the ocean.
Me being arty farty.
It was pretty hard going on the shoulders so we were sipping beers through a straw at the end of the day but not before stopping at a beach where there were tons of cockles so of course, unable to resist a free dinner we picked our daily allowance each (there are limits on numbers and minimum sizes).
Matt did a fine job of cooking them up for dinner! Much nicer than the stuff you get from stalls on Brighton seafront which are also TINY in comparison to the MONSTERS that we had!
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