My gap year adventure: 28/12/2013 + 29/12/2013 first day of stray and Abel Tasman national park

Got picked up by the stray bus at the blueridge ferry building in Picton at 12ish yesterday in the pouring rain. I met lots of people within 5 mins of joining the tour so I can see this as being a very fun way of travelling around the south island!

We first went to a winery, which was included in the stray tour. Tried various wines and got talking to other people before we were driven to an airfield to be shown the various handgliders we could book for our Abel Tasman stay.

We then went to our accommodation "The Barn" in Marahau in Abel Tasman national park. It is a really nice campsite situated in a wide green valley about 20 minutes from the golden beaches!

The rest of the night consisted of getting to know everyone in my stray group as these are the people I will be sharing a bus for 2 weeks with and will be spending new years eve and day with too.

Today however 29/12/2013 was a very different day. It has been raining non stop since last night and visibility is very bad unfortunately, but I just got on with the hike despite this poor weather.

At 9ish this morning, I and three other friends caught the water taxi over to Anchorage (another bay further up the coast)

We got a chance to see the beautiful coast even if it was a bit foggy and rainy, it really is remarkably stunning, I just wish I could have seen it in better conditions.

When we arrived at Ancourage we hiked through the bush along the 15km track back to Marahau. The rain really started to pelt it down so I wore my backpack under my waterproof coat. This did effectively make me look like the hunchback of Notre Dame, but whatever, at least my bag was dry.

We walked uphill to the tops of the hills to see the beautiful views of the tasman sea, the bays and the rest of the park which disappeared into a huge monster of a cloud.

I was told that we were walking through rainforest which was quite fitting considering it was raining hard. Throughout the walk I was surrounded by huge ferns, trees bushes and plantation of various kinds, it was really amazing how alive and noisy the place was too, the loud roaring of the waterfalls the crazy sounds the birds were making it just created this huge orchestra of natural sounds. I really do feel privileged to have been able to explore this great place.

The walk took us roughly four hours and I have just had a boiling hot shower and am looking forward to just chilling out and possibly going kayaking tomorrow morning (providing the weather gets its act together)

The stray bus I'm travelling on