A walk in the park

So from kaikoura and whale watching we headed up further north out past nelson to the Abel Tasman national park. It's the only one of NZ's national parks that's Coastal so we were expecting good things from it. We got up there real early, we literally dropped our bags and stuffed food into our bags for the day and then we headed into the park. We walked for a good 9hrs in total and made it a third if the way through the park which wasn't bad goin at all. It was a spectacular walk and even though it was so long we were constantly distracted by the tourquoise waters and white sands that were around every corner. It was a pretty nice day too, wasn't too hot so was perfect for walking. For lunch we found a track that lead up to the top of a hill which had 360 views of the entire coastline, so we sat there for at least an hour or so just in pure awe of the place. But we had to walk back so we had to get moving on. On the way back though we stopped off at a little bay and went got a swim in what we thought was goin to be the warm Tasman sea but it was freezing in there. We lasted about 5 mins in the water before our toes looked like they were goin to fall off. It was worth it though so can't complain I suppose. So on the first day we walked over 23km along the track which is pretty damn good. The next day we had booked an aquataxi along the coast. So we got brought the length of the park and seen what we didn't see the day before yesterday, would have been a slice of paradise but it was lashing rain. But it didn't dampen out spirits and off we went see the beautiful bays and coves all along the park before getting dropped off at a beach where we then started a 4hr walk to our pick up point. It turned out ok cuz the rain stopped and it was nice enough to walk in but could have been better. So we made our pick up and then it was the boat trip back to the mainland, bit rough to say the least with massive storm swells crashing against us all the time, but we did get to see a blue penguin, the smallest penguin in the world too which was a pretty nice thing to top off the trip to the park. So that eveing it was onto a bus back to nelson where we stayed for the nite in a nice hostel alled Paradiso with free wifi and the lot so wasn't too bad. Then today we caught our bus down to glacier town. It was a pretty cool bus trip, we got to stop off at a place called Punakaiki where there are amzing rock formations and blowholes. So we went for a walk around there and we were pretty lucky as tide was coming in and a blowhole was starting to blow. Neither of us had ever seen one so that in itself was an experience. So from there we arrived here in Franz Josef glacier town. It's a nice place but there's not too many people around which is a good enough thing too. So we booked our hike up the glacier for in the morning but just hope the weather clears a but for us tomorrow.