This new perspective left me blinking and stupefied. I mean, sure, challenge is good, but… but… I mean… Well. There you go. And he is clearly not a woman.

Which is not to say that women aren’t adventurous, but that being female adds safety issues that are generally compounded in places where the “travel challenge” is higher.

I went back to Picton and spent the night at The Villa – the same hostel that I’d been to on the first go ‘round. It was my last stop on the south island. I’d been feeling really disappointed about leaving the south island because it’s been so damn good (even with the ease of hostel locating), but I heard there could be good parts of the north island, too.

As I was sitting in the hallway using the hostel computer for internet a woman walked in that I recognized. She had been one of my roommates at the Laughing Kiwi in Motueka.

I did most of the things there were to do in Picton when I’d been there previously, so I made myself some dinner and ended up chatting with an older American couple that was staying in the hostel. And when I say older, I mean that they were over 75 (they’d mentioned that they were – I wasn’t speculating). When it rains it pours, I suppose, because there were two other women of… non-traditional hostel age range staying there that night. I’m not sure I’d even seen one before then. After 40 people usually stay in motels.

He was rather quiet, and she was very talkative and I spent most of the evening listening to her various stories and opinions. Her husband was telling me a story of someone he met on a plane. They talked, as you do, during the flight, and he said “It was so nice to visit with him,” as though the guy had come by for tea. I thought was just the most charming thing.

I had time to kill before my ferry, and so wandered around the two main streets. There wasn’t anything particular of note (I went back to the bakerij and it was still awesome), except this:

It’s a war memorial to the “Glorious Dead” upon which they’ve put giant tinsel Christmas decorations.

I guess the glorious dead like to get gussied up for the holidays too.

I took the Interislander ferry on this trip (I took Bluebridge last time), and it was interesting to compare the two. Interislander smelled much better, but charged $10 to watch the videos they had on (Elizabeth and Die Hard 4). They also had lots more options for food, including a café, a different café with more selection, and a pub (complete with dark woods and stained glass). But I thought the viewing deck for the Bluebridge was better – more spacious and located at the front of the boat.

In the lobby of the ferry terminal I – again – ran into someone I knew – the very knowledgeable woman from Nelson, L, who helped me figure out what town I should go to for my Abel Tasman trek (the town whose name I got wrong and subsequently didn’t go to). We spent most of the trip on the upper deck, huddling away from the wind and trying to combat motion sickness.

The nice thing about arriving in Wellington was that I still (mostly) remembered where I was going. I went back to the Cambridge hotel, unfortunately not back to my single room, but to the backpacker rooms. I booked a single night, not sure if I wanted to stick around longer. The room was lovely – giant ceilings, exposed beams, and wooden walls, but not in that hideous 1970’s way, but in the older, architecturally authentic way. They assigned beds, which was stupid, but no one paid attention to the booking, so there.

The kitchen, however, was filthy. Really disgusting. And there was almost no lounging room. So it wasn’t all good.

And who did I see coming in the door but the same woman who I’d met up with in both Picton and Motueka. We were roommates for the third hostel in a row.

We ended up going out to dinner, and as we were sitting I spotted L of Nelson and the ferry, and she joined us for dinner.

New Zealand can be really small sometimes.

What I didn’t know, when I checked into the Cambridge Hotel, was that the LA Galaxy soccer (or “football,” if you’re one o’ them un-AmERican types) team was coming to Welly and playing some team or other the next day or so, and oh my god, David Beckham was coming, isn’t that exciting, and beds were going fast. I tried to book my bed for the next night and couldn’t. I had to call the YHA (Youth Hostel Association) hostel down the street.

The YHA was bright, spacious, and clean, but totally devoid of character. M met up with me there, and as he re-uploaded music onto his mp3 player I watched a gang of schoolchildren on a field trip act out various skits in the dining room. Strange to think that on a school trip they’d have the kids stay in a hostel, but I suppose it’s cheaper that way.

It was six floors, though. That’s a lot of hostel beds. And there didn’t seem to be much-if-any interaction between people who didn’t already know each other. Lovely. But at least I got in.

Small victories.

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See, all the information about Abel Tasman is really confusing. It’s advertised everywhere, with these impossibly gorgeous photos of boats in water so clear it looks like they (the boats) are floating, and wee, adorable, big-eyed seals perched on the ends of kayaks. Everywhere. Seriously. But there’s no obvious town near to Abel Tasman to use as a base, and almost everyone does a 3+ day hike through the park, which I wasn’t planning to do, but there was some noise about permits and camping and aqua taxis and it was all terribly confusing.

Eventually I found that Lonely Planet said Marahau was a decent jumping off place for Abel Tasman, since most of the kayak/aqua taxis/whatever else were based there. So that was one thing more or less sorted. Maybe.

I asked a number of people about it, and couldn’t really get a handle on how this park thing could be done – until I got to Nelson. I stayed at Accents On the Park, which Lonely Planet says “feels more like a guesthouse than a hostel,” which is a lie. It’s pretty big, but decent enough, I guess. Anyway, one of my roommates had actually worked there for 9 months and knew plenty about this whole Abel Tasman thing.

She said Marahau was a good idea, and there are easy ways to figure out day kayak trips, which is what I wanted. Sorted.

Since I didn’t get into Nelson until after the info centers were closed and I prefer to make bus reservations with them than online or over the phone (I feel better with a confirming piece of paper in my hand), I ended up staying in Nelson two nights. I got along very well with L, the woman who’d worked there before, and S, who was in the bunk under mine.

Determined to not spend too much money, S and I wandered to a used bookstore, and – okay. Okay. The price of books here is outrageous. Completely outrageous. A new paperback is NZ$30-35. I’d finished my book ages ago and couldn’t bring myself to buy any more because they’re so heinously expensive. Most at the used bookstore were $10-12, which was okay. I tried to sell the one book I had bought new here (The Big Twitch, NZ$36) and he offered me $6 for it. I laughed in his face.

By which I of course mean I politely declined.

Then lunch and a good long wander. We compared educational systems – she’s German (yes, lots of German travelers here) – and GOD it’s not fair. They pay something like 500 euro for a semester’s education. That’s so little! Bah. Jerks.

We went to the beach to read in the sun, and (and I’m so tan! Whee!) I gave up after about 20 minutes, because – thanks to the breeze – no way I sat kept the sand out of my face. I watched the sand build up on my bag and on my feet before deciding to walk back. We’d taken the bus out with the plan to walk back. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The only bonus to the walk of eternal punishment was that as I passed some waterfront bar and heard The Hobnail Boots doing a sound check for their performance that night. If I hadn’t been tight on moneys and completely uninterested in walking back I would’ve gone to the concert. But I enjoyed listening to them play “These Boots Are Made For Walking,” even if I couldn’t see them.

Oh, and I got sunburned on the walk, too. That was nice. Humph.

On Saturday morning I went to the Nelson Market, which involves lots of crafts and food. Nothing much to note about that. I had a crêpe; it was good.

I’d gone to the info center on Friday and bought my ticket, and on Saturday, a few hours before I was to leave, I realized I’d bought it for the wrong place. I’d been planning to go to Marahau, and had bought my ticket for Motueka (ma-tu-EE-ka). It wasn’t that big a deal – they were close together, and in fact, Motueka offered better hostel options, but I still felt pretty stupid.

I got myself a bed at the Laughing Kiwi backpackers and got myself booked for a kayaking trip the next day. Turns out one of the kayaking companies Had bought up the rest of them just the month before, so it was difficult to get recommendations for which trip would be good, especially since it still kept all the different companies open since they attracted different types of people. So even though it was all one company there were still maybe five options of sub-companies to go through, with 3-6 day trips each to choose from. I chose the Kaiteriteri company and their… what was it called… Full Day Royale with Cheese. Something royale with cheese.

I went to The Warehouse – NZ’s equivalent of Wal-Mart – for a sun hat, bug repellant (which was on the same shelves as the insecticide, which made me a little concerned), and water. The Warehouse (“where everyone gets a bargain”) sucks, but I needed cheap and there it was. I’m so ashamed.

OH! I didn’t get any sunscreen (I had some already), but that reminds me – their sunscreen only goes up to SPF 30. Nothing higher. Weird.

The bus picked me up at, oh, 8:30am or so from the hostel. I boarded and was struck by some of the surliest holiday faces I’ve ever seen. I’m not really a morning person either, but crikey.

If you’ve ever had a teenager you know the morning face. Teenagers can’t really recognize it among their peers, but if you’ve been an adult and faced with a teenager before 10am then you know the face I mean. And – oh. They looked like… how to put this… They looked like the type of people for whom MTV, reality shows, and “bacardi breezers” are made. They looked like they came from the Kiwi Experience bus– and, it turns out, some of them were.

The Kiwi Experience bus caters to… the more… social 20-30-something crowd. Rumor has it – and this is just a rumor, emphasis on rumor, though I could totally see it being true – they sometimes have kegs on the back of their busses. Because the best way to spend a vacation is drunk.

ANYWAY. I was sitting there, fairly bright-eyed (I think I just heard my parents snort derisively at the thought of me being bright-eyed at that hour), terrified that I would have to spend the day with these people. As we checked in and paid whatever we had yet to pay they stood around with their giant sunglasses (okay, I have a pair of those too, though not with me, which is a shame because the sunglasses I have look really dreadful on me) and short shorts and hangover chic, making me tired just to be around them.

Maybe I’m a little cruel; I can’t be sure.

By miracle of miracles they weren’t on my trip. I was sent over to the beach where I met the two guides, What’s His Face and That Other Guy, who was decked out in pyjamas and a flow-y, flowery robe. They handed me a cricket bat (those are heavy) and tossed a tennis ball to me until two others on our trip showed up.

We hopped onto an aqua taxi and took off for Bark Bay, where we unloaded and met the other three members of our crew. One of them was a woman I’d met in Punakaiki. I’m really glad she remembered where we’d met, because it would’ve driven me absolutely insane.

Kayaking is hard. If you were wondering.

It was a really nice trip – What’s His Face and That Other Guy were really excellent guides and very funny. After lunch they had us hit the tennis ball again with a half an oar (they didn’t bring the cricket bat).

Lunch was catered, and the drinks were pretty fancypants – they foamed milk for my coffee, and then sprinkled chocolate on top. I’ve been to coffee shops that haven’t done that much.

There were only eight of us – guides included – in four double sea kayaks. In the second hour or so we had a good wind and ended up sailing for a while. We got all the kayaks together (“rafted up”), then the front outside two held the bottom of a tarp, the other ends of which were tied to the ends of oars and held up from the back outside two. The inner folks had the task of holding the kayaks together.

I wish I’d gotten a picture, but I was busy holding the end of the tarp.

It was a gorgeous day, I didn’t get burnt, and only got bit by bugs a little bit (sandflies, for the record, are evil, evil creatures). We saw – and smelled some seals (none got up on our kayaks, dang it) (I think that happens 1. very infrequently, and 2. only when there are young, curious, and not terribly bright seals around) (it’s getting near mating season, which explained the extra pheromone-based funk that we smelled) and a bunch of cormorants.

Interesting facts: Shag = cormorant, which is one of two or three web-footed birds that can land in trees.

We saw split apple rock, which… you know. Was good. Big.

And boy did I sleep well that night.

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