We're taking the advice from many good people and taking a break.  We've been hitting it pretty hard lately and Kaikora, New Zealand is providing us a nice small and quiet place on the coast to relax for 5-6 days.

Kaikoura is on the east coast of the South Island and is known for whale watching more than anything else.  It does have quite a bit of natural beauty as well, with mountains as a backdrop (that have been hidden by clouds). 

We took in some of the beauty today with a hike out to the cliffs on the peninsula.  We'd recommend it, but if you're considering it- don't go all the way to South Bay - there is nothing there.

 At the bottom of the hike there is a reserve for seals and it was so fun watching this guy dream as he slept- just like Amos.  We wondered what he dreamt about...my guess- catching fish.

Of course, what walk in new Zealand would be complete without sheep.  My dad says there are 40 sheep for every person. It seems like more. We've learned that when you're bored on long drives, you can honk your horn and the sheep on the side of the road will run.

Here's Sachi using her patented arm balacing position on the cliff...

We're continually amazed at how NZ seems to trust people and let them go places that could be dangerous without fences or waivers. Ahh, life without litigation... how nice.

The weather has been on our side – knock on wood. As we ended our hike in Abel Tasman, it began to pour and continued to drench the tent campers all night. We hid in Squeak all warm and cozy till the morning – as we planned to even without the rain.

Now, in Franz Josef village, the sun chased any clouds away and we headed up the glacier that was named after the Austrian emperor whose white beard it imitated.

It’s a strange feeling hiking up a glacier. Ice stairs have been carved for your crampon wrapped boots. Climbing ropes act as make-shift and loose railings. You are part of a line of 7 folks venturing up these stairs together, some right behind the other, others leaving a few steps leeway. Four ladder bridges cross crevasses that seem too far down to look.

The sun is warm, so no one wears their jackets, but there is a light wind coming across the glacier that is ice cool and refreshing just enough that you forget the sunburn developing on your face.

Apparently, the glacier is advancing, unlike most in the world. We heard 2.5 months ago it was 30 meters shorter than it is now. The guides are constantly maintaining, with a large ice axe, the stairs and walkways and ropes. One guide mentioned that each stairway up the face lasts between 3 and 30 days, and then they carve out a new one. We could see the remnants of melting staircases across a crevasse on the left and then another on the right – a little spooky. When will the staircase we’re standing on now be deemed unusable?

 We went with Franz Josef Glacier Guides, which we found very professional and fun.

We had been hearing about the hiking or “tramping” in the Able Tasman National Park for a while.  Today, in a sprinkle of rain we had about a 3 hour hike in the park.

It’s a very popular and small park in NZ standards, about 22,000 hectares (about 50,000 acres) and has inland and coastal tracks.  Today we did the coastal track from Bark Bay to Torrents Bay.  To start at Bark Bay required a water taxi because it is about halfway up the coastal track to the north of the southern entrance to the park.  This is  a water taxi...

We haven’t seen rain on the trip so far really- why would it come today?  With this thinking in mind, we departed Squeak without a rain jacket between us, dressed for a warm summer day.  Of course, on the way up the coast in the very back of the cold water taxi, rain greeted us for one of the first times.  It continued to greet us as we realized we’d made a bad choice on which route to take to Bark Bay.  We choose a route called “Discoverer Day” that provided a tour of the coastline much farther North than Bark Bay, adding about 1.5 hours to what was a pretty miserable experience in the back of the taxi.  We should have gone directly to Bark Bay and started hiking.  Had we been more prepared, or had the sun shone, we might be telling a different story.

Luckily, the rain was only a sprinkle when we reached the Bark Bay Trailhead and our luck began to change.  The trail made minor descents and ascents and afforded beautiful views of the coastline. The park has an other-worldly quality due to the plant species we’re not used to seeing. I wish I knew the names other than the national emblem- the Silver Fern.

We had read that the park had become too popular and the “crowds” had taken away from the serene appeal of the park.  We’re finding that the Kiwi view of crowded and that of the rest of the world can be vastly different.  We did not find an overrun park, but one with desolate accessible beaches and the occasional passer-by.

In all, we were impressed, but it wasn’t amazing.  In a lot of ways, it was just a nice hike along a coastline. Would we do it again in hindsight? Likely.  Would we recommend it?  Yes, but not with great enthusiasm.

Who is Abel Tasman?

He has a park (and town) in New Zealand named after him and a sea in between NZ and Australia.  He named the country of New Zealand. He has a big Australian Island (Tasmania) named for him.  Why don’t we see a lot of references to him in New Zealand history (we wondered)?

While he was the first European (Dutch) to discover New Zealand and did map a lot of it’s coast in 1642, his encounter was brief and violent. Unlike Capt. Cook who befriended and traded with the Maori, Tasman fought with them and only visited the mainland once.  So, his place in New Zealand history is about initial discovery and little else (from what we understand).  Wikipedia has more.