All along the coast it was like the rainforest went straight to the water or the rocky headlands and then there’d be a stretch of isolated beach. Some of the beaches were very small and some were big enough to have groups camped. These are beaches that are only accessible to boats. There is no way to hike down to them because of the steep cliffs. They are perfect for the sea kayakers who are camping for a few days. Shortly after pulling out we passed Split Apple Rock. It looks just like an apple that had split sitting there. Our boat ride was probably about 45 minutes. There are 42 summer homes in Abel Tasman Park. What lucky people! It was negotiated in 1942. I guess when they set up the park those who had land there or places got to keep the right to have them. What views they have! It’d be just like being able to have a cabin of your own in Yellowstone! We were ferried off at Torrent Bay and had about two hours to hike to Bark Bay. It was a steep narrow trail up the mountain and then back down again of course. There were seven of us that took this option but we didn’t all hike together. It looked much like a rain forest because of the ferns, mosses, and lichens. It was like we were hiking through the clouds. It was a misting kind of rain. Later it really began to rain but it was not cold and was pleasant tramping for awhile. Every now and then a beautiful overlook would pop up! I just wished for sun for some pretty pictures. When we got to Bark Bench we huddled up in a crowd on the porch of a little house there. It was really raining then and it was breezy and chilly when we weren’t moving and we were all wet. We had what was to have been our picnic there. Because we had to wait about 45 minutes we were all quite chilly by the time the boat came. They ferried us over again and we were on our way back to the starting point to join up with the kayakers and the ones who just chilled out all day. It was 3:00 p.m. by then and we were headed to Bullers Adventure Company to make arrangements for what we wanted to do tomorrow. It RAINED the rest of the day! We were driving through clouds and could only see a couple of car lengths out in front of us. We couldn’t see the landscapes or anything we passed.

I had noticed that they didn’t seem to catch rainwater here like they did in Australia. Maybe because they don’t need too as much! Sheep are everywhere on this island. Andrew calls them land lice. Ever since he told me that I just laugh because it’s really a good comparison. They really don’t like passing vehicles. They are skittish animals. We’ve passed deer farms a lot! They are in pastures grazing like cattle. Kiwi vines are prevalent around here and Nick says tobacco plants (Nick is our driver). They sure look different than what I thought tobacco looks like. They are growing up poles and supports like beans. Maybe they are just real young plants. At one point we had to stop the bus and follow a herd of cows being herded down the road from one pasture to another. One working dog assisted a guy in a car!

We were heading to Westport. My ears were popping as we went up. We went into Kahuangi National Park. Fifty percent of the native trees in New Zealand are there and 50-80% of the wildlife. The name is Maori and means "protective veil". Maori words all seem to have two meanings. Many, many things here have such strange names because they are Maori. We followed a river down for such a long time. It reminded me of driving in the Colorado Mountains and crossing over the river which keeps popping up on opposite sides of the road. We saw no kayakers on this river though. It would be good rafting here!

We stopped at Bullers Gorge but the predictions are that there won’t be any activities tomorrow because things are flooded. The direction we are heading has already had a lot of rain. We drove through Murchinson. In 1929 there was a huge earthquake here. We saw the 90% angles on the mountains. It demolished this town. Six hundred people live there now. We saw where the road disappeared in one place from a landslide. They had to carve more out of the mountain and made another road. You can still see the old section leading up to the drop-off.

Westport boasts of 2000 hours of sunshine a year which is more than Auckland, Christchurch or Wellington. I’d have never guessed that by what we’ve seen. What a FOG there is and no let up in the rain AT ALL. We stopped for tea at one little spot. We’d gone over six or eight bridges. They were all single lane and made with very different architectural styles. The bus just fits over! We went through a section of white pine. It’s the tallest type of pine in New Zealand – a soft pine that was used to make butter boxes. They build houses with it now. They grow about 150 feet tall. Logging is much more regulated now though. We’ve passed several Teutonic plates. The mountains are still shifting and moving on the south island. We wound and wound around. The rivers we crossed late in the day were RAGING. We went around one turn where the height and width of the bus was literally carved out of the mountain! The rail along it was marked in one place where the water came up in the 80’s. We would learn the next day that this road was washed over and passed that mark!