Nevermind the Jeans and Gloves...

Kia Ora from Collingswood, Golden Bay. We woke up this morning from our tent to mile long views of the stunning and dramatic mountains of Kahurangi National Forest across the calm waters of the bay. Yes, for $25 NZ ($20 US) per night we get to sleep on the untouched waterfront. It's probably 85 degrees today - looks like that cold snap has long past and it's time to enjoy the last days of summer.

Since the last blog entry we have been doing well and the South Island Kiwis have been nice to us (so far, ha ha). Yesterday we drove over the mountains to Golden Bay on the northwest coast. We took a beautiful hike to Pupu Springs, the home of the clearest water on Earth! Apparently the visibility is 131 meters, pretty crazy. The hike was short, but it was interesting to read about the creation of the springs, the gold mining days here in the 1850s and the different stages of forest growth. It's incredible how the landscape changes here so quickly, from dense forest to field to orchard to savanna.

After the springs, we took a long coastal walk on Farewell Spit, the long sandy arm on the northwestern most part of the South Island. I bought a book on New Zealand Birds (it's true, I am a full on nature dork now) and along with our binoculars we continued checking off the different species we saw. Black swans, oysterpickers, sparrows, white-faced heron, red and black beaked gulls to name a few. As we walked on the layer of shells with a constant "crack" under our feet and the tide went down, we realized the birds were all hanging out waiting for the pools of water to appear and eat the crustaceans, bugs and fish for dinner. We walked across the spit to the western side for views of incredible sand dunes and waves with not a single human in sight.

Our our way to Collingswood to camp for the night, we hit up the 6km gravel road to Whainginui Beach and began the 20 minute hike. After 15 minutes of running hearing the occasional "baaah," there was no beach to be found, just miles upon miles of hilly sheep pastures. And I mean SHEEP, wow, there were tons of them all around. I felt like what's-her-name in the Sound of Music and wanting to sing "The hills are alive..." but I digress. Clearly we took the wrong trail! So we hiked over sheep hill and sheep hill and even steeper sheep hill towards the ocean and finally saw it from a distance. That was good enough for us:) The sun was setting and our stomachs were growling for taco salad on the menu.

Today we are headed south to do some WWOOFing at a B&B/orchard in Nelson Lakes region, back towards Abel Tasman. On the way, we plan to hike to some caves in Kahurangi National Forest and who knows what else. We will stay overnight at the WWOOFing place tonight and they have Internet access so the plan is to download some photos for you to see by tomorrow sometime. More details to come later, for Andy has been the planner on this one and I just nod my head like a good wife. Ha ha. Love to all!