Another Day, Another Adventure!: Gin's birthday!!!

For my birthday, we decided to take a kayaking trip along the coast of Abel Tasman National Park. It is a really beautiful national park on the northern coast of the South Island. We signed up for a half day trip.

When we got there at 8:30, we met our guide Sam. There were three other people in our group: Christian and Katherine from Germany and Julia from France. By the time we got all of our gear and Sam showed us some paddling techniques, it was about 10. We finally set out on our adventure.

The kayaks were two person boats so Jigar and I were in the same one. We are not experienced kayakers so it took us a little while to figure the whole thing out. Once we got going, it was really fun. About that time, Sam told us that it was about time for us to go back. We had just gotten going! We decided to extend to the full day.

We ended up kayaking over to a really beautiful beach with golden sand and blue water to have lunch at. We were the only ones at the beach. In fact, we were close to the only ones in the sea! It was gorgeous. Unfortunately, I forgot to hold the kayak after I got out which meant that Jigar fell out of the boat when he tried to get out. Oops! The water was a bit chilly (8 or 9 degrees Celsius), but he was a good sport about it. Luckily, Sam had some dry clothes for him to change into.

Since we hadn't signed up for the whole day, they didn't have lunch for us. There was a little soup left over that we split and we had granola bars and apples that we had brought. Sam gave Jigar half of his muffin. In the end, we had enough to eat.

After lunch, we paddled over to an island where the seal pups live. They were so cute! They came right up to the kayaks and they were playing on the rocks right next to us. We hung out there for a while and then we headed up the coast some more. We went through some rocks by the coast. It was difficult navigating, but it was so much fun.

By the time we met up with the water taxi that would take us back, we had paddled 17 kilometers! We were a little bit sore the next day, but it was well worth it. It was the best birthday I ever had.