Day 13 - Golden Bay (Tata Beach)

A very early start today- 6:00am.  We headed to the west coast towards the Abel Tasman National Park which was a 2 hour drive even though it was only 115kms away. The road was very windy and up in the mountains.  Mazz wasn't coping very well as the drop of the mountain was on her side. The views were great but  wasn't keen on taking any photos. We got to Golden Bay and then headed to a small beach called Tata Beach. Today we are going on a guided tour on kayaks with Golden Bay Kayaks. Because it was a tour for families, there were 3 families that also joined the tour- Germans, Swiss and British. The two guides Pip and we can't remember her name, were great guides. We were all giving a safety briefing and a quick demo of how to kayak. Paul and Daniel were together and Josh and I were together. Once we were all ready we headed down the coast where we kayaked to two islands- Ngawhiti Island and Motu Island. Here we saw different species of birds and we even saw a seal frolicking in the water. The water here is so blue and clear. We kayaked between majestic rock walls and even got to go up close to some small caves. In one of the bays there were a whole heap of buoys that were used to grow mussels on. We kayaked to the beach for a short rest and explore and then kayaked back to a more sheltered beach. Here we had morning tea of tea,coffee, hot chocolate and muffins. We had a lot of interesting conversations getting to know the different families and hearing stories of their travels. The weather was great for kayaking as it was slightly overcast and about 22degrees. After a rest for about half an hour we headed back the way we came to return to Tata Beach. Pip decided we all needed to have a race back to the beach- rule 1 you must do a 360degree turn, rule 2 first to the beach and run and grab the New Zealand flag was the champion, rule 3 no bumping and rule 4 go as fast as you can. Any guess who won? Yes it was team Aussie A- Mazz and Josh! We all had a really great time and it wasn't too expensive for New Zealand prices! Another 2 hour drive back to Nelson which wasn't as bad because we were on the inside lane. We arrived back to Nelson, had showers and relaxed for the rest of the night. Good job you can get Aussie tv over here-we've been watching the Boxing Day Test! Go Aussies!