Golden Bay & Abel Tasman National Park

Landed in our idyllic beachside villa in Pohara Beach, Golden Bay at the northernmost tip of South Island, adjacent to Abel Tasman National Park. This is where the Dutch explorer discovered New Zealand; on his first venture ashore the local Maoris rammed his tender with their war canoe and killed 4 of his men - the inlet since named 'Murderers' Bay'.

This place is just beautiful, and all ours for 2 weeks - lots to explore.









Mutton Cove in the heart fo the Abel Tasman National Park - it took us five hours to walk to this photo opportunity!
...but were able to return by boat: minus my cool prescription shades which I lost below the briny!!

Our first forays were into the National Park, a fabulous mixture of forest and coastline, we've

already trudged miles of it......

There are caves, alpine meadows and perfect deserted beaches to explore.
We're able to collect fresh mussels from our own beach each low tide.

Spot the oldest stalactite!

Picnics on our cycle rides, and we're keeping an album of the most ingenious home-made camper-vans we come across. This one is basically a garden shed planted on top of an old bus.












Everywhere we go we stumble across families of Californian Quail with their newly hatched chicks not much bigger than bumble bees. They're pretty unafraid and seem to like being photographed!