Today = Kayak-day!

We are going on a kayak-trip through the Abel Tasman national park! Named after the Dutch guy thay "discovered" New Zealand and was responsible for naming it after the province where he was from in The Netherlands.

In pictures this park is alway sunny and nice; in reality (or at least today) it was cold and rainy . A bit disappointed we start our tour, and once we are in the kayak it is not that bad afterall, especially when we near a colony of fur-seals. These lovely creatures are very curious and approach and swim around our kayaks and are very interested in what we are doing. Some of our group manage to pet the seals, and according to our guide it is possible that a seal climbs on the kayak itself!

This is really cool, and everybody is instantly happy by this experience.

After a good amount of kayaking (~ 9 km) we land on a beach where we change into dry clothes and have our lunch in the pouring rain. The lunch is actually quite nice with pumpkin-soup, calzone-bread and banana-chocolate cake. A good cup of coffee completes this meal and re-energized we start our walk through the temperate rainforest. Luckily I had brought an umbrella, so I stayed dry during our walk.

In the evening everyone was really tired, except for the people that went sky-diving: due to the rain this activity was cancelled... Evening dinner consisted of a generous BBQ, prepared by our one and only Australian tour leader Wes. A couple of beers later and it was already time to go to bed: tomorrow we have to get up early to go to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand!