Able Tasman
This past weekend Kelley (CSU exchange student), Matt (Wisconsin exchange student) and I packed our bags and took a 30 minute flight from our beautiful city of Wellington to Nelson-a small town at the most northern coast of the South Island of New Zealand.
To get to Nelson we took a small propeller plane (I have never been in a propeller plane before, it was not my cup of tea). The plane ride was 30 minutes, by the time we took off and the seat belt sign had gone off it was already time to prepare for landing!
Once we landed at the Nelson Airport (smallest one gate airport I have ever experienced) we picked up our rental car. We then began to drive up the coast for three hours to Wharariki. Once we reached Wharariki we did a quick 20-minute hike from the parking lot through rolling green hills filled with sheep to get to the beach. Wharariki beach is a beautiful white sand dune beach.
We made it to the beach in time to watch the most magnificent sunset I have seen thus far in New Zeeland. While exploring the beach of Wharariki we came across baby sea lion pups and their moms. There were about twenty baby sea lion pups playing in the little pools of water along the beach. So of course we began to play with all of them! They would love to jump out of the water and chase after us, They would waddle and we would run away.
After hanging out on the beach we headed back towards Nelson and grabbed dinner along the way and found a nice place to spend the night car camping. In the morning we ventured to the famous Able Tasman National Park.
We arrived at able Tasman early and grabbed breakfast at a café along the beach. We then set out on a 3-mile hike on the Able Tasman Track, to Apple Tree beach.
Able Tasman is unlike any place I have ever been. The water is a deep aqua and turns to a bright green well the beaches are a bright yellow. It is the most stunning view!
We set up out hammocks and laid out by the beach for several hours before hiking back into Marahau for dinner, at a pizzeria at the beginning of the hiking track.
After spending the night in Marahau we headed towards Kaiteriteri to Split Apple Rock. We arrived early in the morning just in time to do some morning yoga and to sit on the gorgeous yellow sand beaches while watching the Sunrise. We spent the morning laying on the beach and swimming out to the Split Apple Rock (a large boulder that is split right down the center out in the water). We then headed back into Nelson to catch our plane back home to Wellington!
