Abel Tasman and Farewell Spit

Motueka is yet another lovely little town, and it does live up to it's reputation as an arty town (without being pretentious, being more grungy I suppose). We got our first real rain during our stay here, but luckily we were staying at another great backpackers place, the Laughing Kiwi. They had a no-TV policy, something I thought was great, and gave the place a much more relaxed but lively feel to it, as opposed to everyone just sitting around staring at the idiot-box (at one stage some guys started watching a DVD on their laptop in the common room, and the owner came along and told them they'd have to watch it in their bedroom - cool).

The place had a little music system, but they had a fantastic collection of chilled out music, and with the cosy atmosphere of the communal kitchen, warm central heating and the chilly rainy night outside, it all made for a great setting.

But really, we were waiting for the weather to clear up a bit before heading up to the Abel Tasman national park to do a famous one day hike. So when the weather did clear we drove up to the park and booked a water taxi, which basically after a short tour of a couple of landmarks in the area (Split Apple Rock and a small seal colony), drops you off at a beach and you walk the track back to your starting point (the full track is another multi-day Great Walk).

Yet again, another fabulous hike in New Zealand, this time along beach strewn coastline, and of course most of it through the obligatory forest. It was a long day though, and it was great to eventually get back to the cosy van, and it didn't rain all day.

Because the hike took the whole day, we decided to spend the night in the tiny town of Takaka near the national park. The town tries to nuture a reputation for organic eating and we ate well in a cool vegetarian restaurant.

The owner of the backpacker place we stayed in was a nice Scottish lady, although she seemed a tad tipsy as we left for the evening, and was completely plastered by the time we got back from dinner and a drink in the local pub (that had live music that night). We settled up with her for our accommodation anyway, after politely refusing to join her and her husband and their mate for a few drinks. The next morning she completely forgot about the money we'd settled up the night before, thinking she still owed us change - all very strange.

That morning we drove up to the tip of the North island to visit the huge sand spit known as Farewell Spit. It was pretty cool exploring around here, as the wind was ferocious (and I love strong winds, even though I'm a cyclist), and it was a lovely clear sunny day. The sand on the extensive beach was getting blown all over the place as fastmoving wisps and it was cool getting sandblasted as you walked around (strangely the sand never seemed to lift any higher than ankle height, so it didn't blind you or anything). We spotted more seals lazing about the many rocks, and explored a couple of big caves, all very remote and wild.

We had lunch at a very stategically positioned restaurant that offered great views along the length of the spit, and had a mighty powerful telescope to view the unusual small forest and lighthouse at the very tip of the spit. So after lunch we drove back down along the coast to the major town of Nelson.