Windy Wellington!

Had a few amazing days in Motueka, the biggest town closest to the Abel Tasman National park. Met up with Sophia the German, one last time for some amazing Thai food and shared stories of our park adventures. The park is around 22,000 acres, yet, still the smallest national park in New Zealand.  You hike along the coast dipping in and out of coves and beaches, camping along the way and jumping in the ocean when you're too hot to continue. The path was pretty populated with hikers but most kept to themselves and you could always find a spot all your own. I had a kayak guide named Sophie that was living her dream job, kayaking new Zealand every day. She reminded us, however, that many days were freezing, windy, and a pain-in-the-ass. Our days in the park, however, were filled with sunshine and sweat!

Shared a double kayak with Mike, a retired school superintendent from the UK with his son and his wife, newlyweds now living in Oz.

From Motueka I took the bus to Nelson and down the East coast of the South Island to Kaikoura, NZ. The road followed the coastline weaving around coastal cliffs with gorgeous views of the water and hillsides.

Korkoua was all tortoise waters, dolphins, seals, birds, rays, black and white sand beaches and picturesque hill sides. Also, the most sheep I have seen so far. I had been told that you will see more sheep than humans, but they have been few and far between. After some investigation I learned that in the 80's, the population was 22:1, but is now 7:1, so the herd is shrinking.  As many of you know, my life dream is to swim with whales ( like really swim with them) and this town is like whale-sighting central. But for some reason, I didn't want to pay the $80 to ride the big boat. Yes, I'm cheap, but also I couldn't imagine being able to jump over the side of this huge boat to swim alongside the whale going over so well with management. I think I now envision meeting my whale family from the side of a self-guided kayak or paddle board somewhere a tad warmer. So no whales this round. I've gotta save something for next time, right?

With traveling, it's so weird because you'll run into someone at the train station you shared a room with two weeks prior or you'll be hiking a day trek and run into someone you shared a bus with 4 days earlier. But at the same time, I've lived on the same street for practically 20 years and don't know most my neighbors.

My next stop was the North island of New Zealand which meant heading north to the ferry that connects the two islands with a 3-4 hour ferry ride. This ferry was huge! Dogs, trucks, cars, you name it and it was loaded on board. I couldn't get a ticket online for the time slot I wanted, but arrived early and was able to change my ticket but because it was so last minute they had to privately escort me on, handing me off from person to person until I was on the passenger level of the ferry. Felt a bit like royalty! This ferry had everything ... a movie theater, restaurant, sleeping quarters (which I took advantage of), and a bar.

Finally, I arrived on the North Island to the windy town of Wellington and stayed in a huge 10 story hostel with lots of free activities, like a city tour where I saw shown around by a girl from Santa Monica, CA.

But I really spent most of my time trying to figure out how I was going to spend my next two weeks in the North Island and be able to fit everything in that I had been advised to do by one of my bus buddies from Auckland. After a couple really nice days in Wellington, I was back in a bus heading north to National park village to hopefully have good weather and be able to hike the Crossing, one of New Zealand's 'great walks.' A few people I had run into along the way hadn't been able to complete the walk due to weather. It's dangerous, unless the conditions are just right, as too much wind can be deadly. But I decided I was going to try. One thing I've learned from teaching outdoors is to never trust the forecast. I had beyond perfect weather and hiked the six hours with two other girls, Lauren from England and Daneila from Germany. The girls hiked a bit faster than me but we managed to hike mostly together cheering and photographing for each other and dreaming up what we'd have as a celebration dinner. I also ran into three Colorado girls armed with everything that screams CO from Patagonia caps to nalgene bottles - they were easy to spot. And I was all like yeah, hey I went to CU like it was yesterday or something. When I started to think about it I realized it was over 10 years ago. Jeez, I'm old!

update: read today that about a week after I completed the hike, a German man in his 50s died completing the journey:(