The kayaking experience is a relaxing and scenic paddle around the bay. I was hoping for a bit more adrenaline, perhaps with a bit of surf, but the sea is calm today. Also, I am in a group of eight people occupying four two person kayaks. My kayaking partner is half of a lesbian couple of vaguely retirement age. She doesn’t have the energy for anything too strenuous, though she does have extremely hairy legs. This means that I have to expend more energy to make up for her periodic breaks in paddling. As I am at the back, I at least dictate which direction we go.
The tide here is very shallow. We had to walk a couple hundred metres to get to the sea, but we are told by our young female guide that the sea will cover the whole beach at high tide.
The highlight of the kayaking is a paddle by a colony of seal mothers and their pups resting on the rocks by an island in the bay and some swim in the shallows around the rocks. I am now used to the lazy / aggressive behaviour of sea lions, but seals are much more curious and engaging, though with pups they are a little more cautious than they otherwise might be.
The bay is called Golden Bay nowadays, but the kayaking guide Lena explains how it was initially dubbed Murderers Bay by Abel Tasman. When Tasman’s ship came into the bay, they saw some Maoris who waved at them. Abel Tasman wasn’t to know that by waving back, he was giving a positive response to the locals sign language for ‘do you want war?’. The landing party that Tasman sent to shore were treated as invaders and thus despatched by the Maoris, so Tasman himself never landed here, despite this area now being Abel Tasman National Park.
My kayak trip ends on a secluded beach where we have lunch before I am sped back to shore. The beach is now entirely covered by the sea, and the speed boat is lifted out of the water and hoisted onto a trailer on the back of a tractor while we are still on board. The tractor takes us back to the campsite.
After a few more hours the ladies come back from their walking trip and we set off towards Kaikoura on the east coast, where dolphins and whales occupy the bay. We stop to camp in between Nelson and Blenheim at another DoC campsite, this time coming across it by accident as it is dark by the time we find it. It’s more expensive than usual at $10 per head, but it’s worth it as it has showers and gas hobs to save us using up the gas in our camping hob.
There’s more wildlife at this campsite, with a black possum around the trees. I also spot a kiwi bird....or is it a Weka again? It’s too dark to tell.
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