Abel-Tasman days and Nelson nights

Today the sun rises over Nelson,  this is great for us holiday makers but even better for the people of Nelson who have had to endure torrential rains and flooding for the last few weeks.  Everywhere you drive the signs of the floods are there,  almost every corner has been hit by a landslip and occasionally you come across sections where the engineers are working flat out to put the road back together.  As Nelson is known as Sunny Nelson, and is the warmest place on South Island it's a real shock for the natives.
We head off out towards the Abel Tasman national park.  It's about an hours drive from Nelson and as we drive the day begins to warm up and the clouds are burning off.  We head for Split Apple Rock,  It's a steep , long walk down through the bush onto a beautiful beach.  Split Apple Rock is a huge rock that looks like an apple that has been split in two (how's that for literal naming?)

A sunny day at Split Apple Rock

By now the weather had started to go from pleasantly warm to damn hot.  We climbed back up  through the bush to the car, visiting a very pleasant (not!) longdrop on the way. We then headed up as far as the road goes, and decided to take a water taxi up along the edge of the park.  Now,  I don't know about you, but to me a water taxi sounds like quite a sedate affair.  Well this water taxi was a speed boat driven at full pelt over some rather choppy water. Each time the boat slammed into another wave you got slammed down in to the seat - not recommended for anyone suffering from piles!

A lot of Shags

It was a beautiful day as we shot up the coast,  with the occasional stop to drop off and pick up people and to tell off people in sea canoes who weren't following the rules.  We visited the seal colony and got a few snaps there, then picked up some canoes and headed for home.

Kiss my fin

What's that down there then

Oh paparazzi - get my best side

At one point a massive wave crashed over the side of the boat and drenched me and my camera.  Ahh - panic!! Suddenly the camera has stopped working,  well it still takes pictures but most of the buttons and dials weren't working. I decided to put the camera back in the bag to keep it dry and I would worry about the problems when we got back.


Once we were back to dry land,  I checked the camera and a few of the functions were working but it still wasn't too good.  Eventually, with the application of the air blowers in the car the camera was dried out and working again.  Phew!  I had only packed one camera body to cut down on weight (which is rather funny when you know how many tons of stuff we seem to be lugging about).
Then it was back to Nelson,  I like Nelson it seems like a really pleasant little city and you have to love somewhere that has warning signs for penguins crossing.

That evening I did the hard work of capturing the sunset on camera whilst Maria slacked off by doing our washing.  Whilst I had to stand virtually motionless by the camera on a tripod, Maria had it easy: running up and down the stairs of the hotel, checking on the two laundries on floors 4 and 6 then heading back to our room on 9.  Eventually she gave up on it all drying in time and bought some of it back to dry in the room.  Eventually we got it all dried and into the cases, ready to leave in the morning,

Evening at Arrow Rock