Abel Tasman

On our way to the northern part of the south island, we took a brief stop to look at the "Pancake Rocks."

We drove to Motueka to meet up with our Canadian friends David and Evelyn.  We met them in PNG while they came to visit.  David grew up at Ukarumpa so he wanted to show his wife what it was like.  We had several adventures with them in PNG and were excited to meet up with them in New Zealand.  (They were traveling through New Zeland also.)

We were planning to camp but the day we met up it was raining so staying in our tents would have been wet.  We decided to rent a little camper at a local holiday park just for the night. 

 We decided that the four of us would take a 3-day hike into Abel Tasman National Park.  We went to a local grocery store to stock up on supplies and then we proceded to pack our backpacks in their parking lot.

The weather was beautiful as we hiked in to the Park along the coast.

The scenery was incredible!

 While hiking we heard the child in the boat yell "Manta Ray!"  Notice the dark spot in front of the boat.

Setting up camp....we had quite the view!!!

This was our view from the beach in front of our tent.  It was beautiful!!  We spent the next two days hanging out, hiking, finding glow worms in caves while almost being bit by wetas (big New Zealand bugs), and enjoying ourselves.

Our gourmet meal on the beach our last night together.

We had to take a group photo before we said goodbye.  It was a fun camping adventure!