We’ve said our goodbyes to Golden Bay and the hippy town of Takaka and headed east! Via some climbing and afternoon tea with the family of my Grandad’s war time buddy! But before all that we spent an hour in the town of Takaka. It was Saturday market this morning, which had a very ‘alternative… Read more

What a fantastic day! Sea kayaking around the world famous (to sea kayakers anyway) Abel Tasman National Park coastline.  As you can see from the pics, there was a bit of cloud cover today. Although that wasn’t great for the photos, it did mean that it was a perfectly pleasant temperature for kayaking and we… Read more

Hoorah! I’m back on par! And with the fantastic excuse to eat and drink as much as possible to build myself back up! Time to get back on the rock and start being awesome again!  We went straight out to the climbing area of Paynes Ford today. It’s not the biggest cliff in the world,… Read more

Limited movements to report today. After a night best forgotten and a morning trip to the local doctors, we’ve (I’ve) been resting and recouperating at what’s turned out to be the lap of luxury. Clare did a fine job of sourcing us a place for the night (and most of the day as well!) in… Read more

Well who would have thought it. After multiple trips into the depths of Africa and remote mountain journeys in and above the jungles of South America, I end up getting what has felt like my worst ever ‘travel bug’ here in the civilised, clean and pleasant land of New Zealand!  However, what better place for… Read more

Woke up feeling glad that we’d not gone sea kayaking! Then groaned a bit, rolled over and went back to sleep. Had an extra long lie-in before attempting a bit of breakfast. We’ve decided to head further north to ‘the end of the road’ and a climbing area called Paynes Ford, then maybe go for… Read more