Hello Spectacular! the Wild (Wet) West coast of the South Island

The South Island is New Zealand's outdoor playground, and oh have I been playin'!

After a sectacular ferry ride from Windy Wellington to Picton, first stop - wine tastings! Whole bus headed to a winery for one of the most comprehensive wine tastings I have ever been to - we went right throught their entire range of wines, infused liquers, flavoured olive oil and liquer ice cream toppings. (Yes Dad - my pack is now so full of fleece and poly pro that I was able to restrain myself from buying too much - no space!)

After the wine tasting, the cold and fog that had been following us all throught the North Island lifted, and we arrived in spectacular Abel Tasman Park. (BTW - you'll hear spectacular a lot in this posting - get ready) In town, we got to stay on Old Macdonald's Farm! more than wildly appreciative this time I was not chased by bulls like last time I stayed in a farm paddock.

Abel Tasman is absolutely gorgeous, and has tremendous tramps for a few days through the woods. Not trusting my free sleeping bag (a little thin - but thank heavens I have it) or the Kiwi definition of "huts " on the trail (and it turns out they are just about 5 star motels compared to "huts" in canada - they even have mattresses and metal top counters!) I took a water taxi up the coast. We had a fantastic ride - huge geological features (fjords, white sand beaches, azure water, seal colonies) and they dropped me off 6 hours hike from a floating house boat hostel in Anchorage bay. I had an absolutely amazing hike through native bush, beaches, waterfalls, and a low tide hike over huge estuaries. The house boat sent out a dingy and picked up an eclectic (hungry and grateful) group of travelers off the beach. We had a fabulous night of drinking, telling stories, looking at the stars and discussing the best of New Zealand. After a big hike - falling asleep to the sway of the boat was just the best. The next morning after breakfast, they provided all the goods for us to back up a lunch for the 4 hour walk back to town.

One of the girls off the boat was an American GP living near Abel Tasman, she took me for a hike to Harwoods hole, an enormous granite cave in the bush. The trail was just like something out of The Neverending Story... or any other childhood adventure book you have read - through beech forest, over moss covered boulders - all of New Zealand seems to look like a children's adventure picture book.