Abel Tasman

I wrote this on Oct 29-30. It is so cold right now. Jamey and I are at Bark's bay. We hiked, or "tramped", for 7 hours yesterday in the Abel Tasman National Park. Our bus driver was in a very talkative mood. I have to admit, most of the time I like people to just shut up in the morning, but he was interesting so it was okay. We started hiking and we realized we didn't really have that much food...6 granola bars for each of us, a sleeve of ritz crackers, and a lemon. I was in charge of the food so I guess it was my fault. But whatever, we will be hungry, but we won't starve. My other problem is that I am developing some serious blisters. I walked barefoot for a good part of the trail because my sandals hurt too much. Later I found out Jamey had a first aid kit the whole time.

Walking the Abel Tasman is strange. The landscape changes rapidly. One minute your in a marsh, then a desert, then jungle, then beach. It's very pretty, and the water is so blue.

I will not camp again though. I thought it would be sufficient to unzip Jamey's sleeping bag, use half his thermal pad, and layer up but it wasn't. Probably the worst decision I've ever made in my life. The ground gets so cold whether you are on it or not and just sucks the heat from your body. And even with 4 layers of clothes, not moving and going to sleep lowers your body temperature anyways. Another mishap is that we thought we could get away with just setting the tent down without pre-booking the site for 12 dollars each. But nope, a ranger came by so we ended up paying 15 dollars each as a penalty. What a rip off. How can they charge per person for a camp site. So that was Jamey's fault.

Then we had to go back the next day. It was extra hard coming back. My blisters re-opened, plus my muscles felt like they were about to tear. Plus we did double time so we could get on the bus by 5:30pm. So instead of a 7-8 hour hike, we did it in 5. We got the same crazy bus driver. Jamey and the bus driver started talking about how much citrus grows on the trees in the area (Jamey has been stealing lemons left and right), and then the bus driver was just like "there's some!" and he pulled over and ran out and grabbed some oranges from someone's yard. He said that's how they used to do it in his day. He also told us about how he shoots cats. Only the feral ones though so I guess that's cool.

We got back to Nelson and we were starving. Nelson is weird though. From about 2-5pm all the restaurants close till dinner. So the only places that were open was good old fast food chains. So we went to Burger King and spent like 30 dollars. It was delicious. Our host at the hostel was really nice too, she gave us the camping discount for a room because she insisted we needed a bed that night. Thank god.