Marahau Beach and Kayaking

We arrived to Marahau around 5pm lastnight. When we pulled in, we saw a bunch of sailboats on sand and the water receded by an enormous amount. Our initial thoughts were, "oh real nice, we will have to walk a mile to get to sandy beach cuz this place has had a drought!" We then checked in and were told that the high-tide and low-tide times in this area are some of the most extreme. We just happened to show up right at the peak low-tide time. So, today we are going to head out to the beaches and hike or water taxi into the National Park.

This is a small town with three main restaurants/pubs and it's easy to tell all the locals know one another. The husband/wife owners of the Lodge we are staying at are so helpful and friendly and we feel really grateful that Sandy our travel agent helped find us such great accomodations. It's supposed to be a sunshiny and clear day so we are pretty excited. Tomorrow we have a kayaking excursion planned as well. We are here for four nights and it should be a lot of fun.
P.S. We miss our dog Rocky. And our Family/Friends too!!

Hanmer Springs

We set off yesterday with our destination being Marahau/Abel Tasman National Park area on the north coast of the south island. We decided to spend part of our day in Hanmer Springs which was on our way. We spent some time relaxing at their geothermal springs resort. This place had about ten different types of stone springs with different types of waters. Beautiful and relaxing to say the least! We had a good lunch in Hanmer Springs and then hit the road to head to Marahau. Pictures to be posted later.