Takaka

Hello everyone! Lucas and I got back from the Abel Tasman sea kayak/tramp trip yesterday and are now in Takaka, which is in the North West corner of the South Island at a hostel.

We had a lovely three day sea kayaking trip. The water was an incredible shade of blue and the coastline was a mixture of golden beaches and carved out cliffs. One of the major highlights was seeing a seal colony with baby seals. THEY WERE SO CUTE!!!!! We had one seal that kept swimming around our boat until we left the reserve.
On the third day, we dropped off our boat and slipped on our backpacks and continued on foot. I loved the way we did this trip as we got to see the coast line from two different perspectives.
There was something really special about this walk as we were so aware of the tides (they dictated whether or not we could cross the estuaries when we were on foot and dictated whether or not we had to drag our heavy boat to the high tide line). Also, there were so many amazing little ecosystems going on everywhere...We spent a lot of time looking at all the sea critters and birds.
Tomorrow, we are going making the long trip south to Queenstown to do eight days of tramping on three different trails. I will miss this wild little corner of the South Island. This is where we spent most of our time last year and somehow, we ended up here again. We really know it.
Lucas is chopping up peppers right now and I should go and help make dinner. We are having gnocci with mushrooms, peppers, garlic, shallots, and tomatoes. All my love, Lucas and Alex