Decemeber 28th, 2005 - Sea kayaking sorrow.

We arrived in the little town of Marahau late in the evening and began planning our trip into the park for the following few days. The national parks in New Zealand are not quite as well organized as those in Canada. Everything has to be done on the internet and after some fiascoes with finding a campsite for the night and then with finding a kayak available for rent, we decided to can the sea kayaking idea and hike the shoreline instead. The benefit is that we are leaving early than we had originally planned so that we can a sea kayaking adventure somewhere else along the South island.
The following morning we took an 8 am water taxi to the far end of the park where we proceeded to hike the 4 1/2 hours back to another popular bay where we could once again be retrieved by the Water taxi. Although we weren't able to explore the shoreline in a sea kayak, we had beautiful weather and at least were able to see a little of both worlds - land and sea. By 3 pm we were back into town and headed for the bigger town of Nelson for a hot shower, laundry and internet facilities.