Not a good photo but this was taken leaving Wellington harbour, heading out into Cook Strait and my first sight of the south isle, the sun on the snow capped mountains was very magical to see.

Kaiteriteri beach - really golden sand

My haul of interesting shells from the beach

The beach at the Anchorage, the end of our walk

Our water taxi back at base.

June 24th

Could write a full script about the Te Papa museum, went back Tuesday morning for a further hour and still did not see all. However needed to move on and drop the car off at the ferry terminal. Only had an hour to wait for the 14.05 sailing. Not only does the ferry take lorries and cars but the lower deck fitted out for rail freight so a lot of shunting back and forth to load the ferry. Sailed dead on time and crossing took 3 hours. Beautiful day so spent most of the time on deck, rewarded with sightings of both dolphins and albatross, plus numerous other birds - without binoculars I was not able to see what they were, probably shearwaters. With the sun the snow on the caps of the mountains in the south isle shone, lovely sight - tried to capture on camera but my one is not that good.

Picked the car up at 17.00 hours and faced a 3 hr journey., and what a drive - at night along very very twisty roads thankfully nobody else on the first part as got some of the hair pin bends slightly wrong!! Got to the hostel for 20.00 hrs and had a burger king for dinner.

Very wet and horrible most of Wednesday, went for a drive but did not see much. The beach at Kaiteriteri was dry and enjoyed a walk, picked up some different shells and took a photo - on the bonnet of the car!! Rest of day spent food shopping - fish is great value here as is fruit. They grow Kiwi, apples, mandarins, oranges, pears and very often you can get a big bag of fruit at the roadside for a couple of Dollars.

Today much improved so drove to Marahau which is really the gateway to the Abel Tasmin National park. One of the Chinese ladies joined me for the day - Rachel - her day off. We walked to the Anchorage which was about 14 kilometres along the coastline, walk pretty even with no real slopes to climb. I think the worst part was half a kilometre drop down to one of the beaches - had a stiff climb back up. The sands here are a different colour to the north isle, much more golden - due mainly to the granite from which they originate from.

The best bit was the return journey by water taxi. Because vehicle access is limited to either end of the park, all the points in between are served by water taxis, fast single and double hull craft. Thankfully the weather was calm but we still encountered a significant swell coming in from the sea. I did wonder how we were going to get from the boat onto shore as the tide was out but the guy promised us all that we would not be getting out feet wet. The answer was to drive the boat up the trailer that was part submerged and towed by a tractor. Due to the swell and shallowness of the water this was some feat and we all got wet from the outboard prop which was half way out of the water. The tractor then towed us up onto the beach and some 500 metres down the road - great fun.

I would definitely come back here as you could take the taxi from the start at Marahau to the top of the park at Totaranui and then back pack down over a 3 to 5 day period either camping out or staying in their huts. Not only can you take the coastal route but also deviate inland to some beautiful vistas like Cleopatra's pool. Anyway we only did a short section which was enough for Rachel. Coming from near the Tibetan border she had little experience of a beach - so we ended up collecting lots of different shells - amongst them several sea urchins.

The day has been rounded off by Irene (Taiwan) and Lim (Malayasia) cooking a red bean cake - still to taste, very tangy noodles which I enjoyed, a sweet concoction of red beans cooked in demerera sugar and water - very sweet and green beans (small kidney shaped) in pastry (dumpling and small pie shaped) - again very sweet. What strikes me in this hostel is that all the guys cook using really good ingredients.

Anyway it is time to close - 9 dollars for 2 hours - not the most expensive but equates to £2.25 per hour so spending a small fortune on Internet access. Only been in one hostel where it was free. Tomorrow I pack up and move south towards Mount Cook and the snow to Hokitika. Want to get up onto one of the two glaciers for my birthday if possible. Will pick up the blog from there.