For to cross the briney ocean

The cabins at Abel Tasman National Park weren't sold to us very well by our bus driver, quarter star was, I think, how he described them. Really, apart from the fact that the cabins seemed to be balsa wood cubes with one blow heater apiece (keep in mind it's about 5 degrees at night here) and the kitchen had one two-element gas cooker propped up on wooden blocks, it really wasn't so bad. The obligatory hostel-cat, made fat from the scraps of tour-buses before us, was beginning to be a theme at all the backpackers we stayed at but what I wasn't prepared for was walking out of my cardboard box/cabin one morning to stare bleary-eyed down the beak of a wandering peacock. My brain taking several seconds in that pre-awake state to grasp that there really was an exotic, brightly coloured bird more suited to the palaces of the British raj sitting in the middle of the barbeque area. Odd animal experience aside (did I mention there was llamas in the field next to us?) the National Park was fun, and us girls took the relaxing option of a day sailing around the scenic coastline on a small yacht. What I didn't bank on was that although the temperatures weren't rising above 19 degrees in those parts the sun over NZ is incredibly strong (legacy of the hole in the ozone perfectly positioned over the island) and I had to make a quick trip to the corner store for some sunnies. The law of buying sunnies at a corner store states that nothing there will look any good whatsoever and so I eventually came out modelling my new baby pink eye-shades, rugged up and ready to ... well, lie around all day really. The coastline around there is, of course, beautiful like all the natural scenery in NZ. The hot sun mixed with the chill wind blowing from the speed of our craft, though, produced an odd effect where you could be perfectly warm while in sunlight, but the moment the shadow of the sail swept across you the surrounding temperature would seem to drop about 10 degrees. Nevertheless it was a fun day, spotting a lone fairy penguin heroically paddling away, buffeted by the waves of our boat. The seals were less energetic and only distinguishable from rocks when they lazily rolled over to sun their other side. We spent minutes discussing what kind of bird a hugely oversized seagull-creature was, that we spotted when we stopped at a sheltered cove for lunch. Eventually we decided it was a seagull, and the reason it was so big was that it had eaten all it's friends, which simultaneously explained the fact that there was only one and also that we really aren't ornithologists.

-- H in Oz