Backpacking Through Abel Tasman

Tuesday I woke up to some birds singing outside our hut. The sounds were beautiful which made me less annoyed to be woken up early. I decided to get out of bed and do some exploring while everyone else slept. Last night Erika had told me about some salt water caves near our site and so I walked down by the water to find them. The water was so calm and peaceful especially in comparison to yesterday's kayak adventure. I walked down along the shore and found the caves which were more like little inlets in the rocks. The rocks were covered in names I assume from the visitors who passed through. I found one cool carving dating back to the 1930s. After about 45 minutes of exploring I headed back just in case people starting waking up and saw that I was gone.

We had a nice hot breakfast of milo and oatmeal and then prepared for our backpack into more of the park. This park was really good at marking the trail and telling you how much further you had to hike. We followed the up hill trail for about an hour over to a place called Cleopatra's Pool. The water was crystal clear and pretty chilly but it felt so good! There was even a natural water slide along the rock that was super fun to go down. I took the liberty of washing my hair in one of the waterfalls since we didn't have the chance to shower yesterday and my hair was coated with salt from the sea water.

After a bit we pushed on along the trail for about 2 hours. We were in the shade of the jungle for most of the hike, following along the coastline. Along the way we were privileged with some absolutely stunning views of the beautiful blue ocean and sandy beaches. We finally reached our destination of Barks Bay and dropped our packs in the sand. We were able to cool off in the nice bay water. Again the water was such a beautiful clear green blue color. The cool water felt so nice on our sore back and shoulders.

We didn't rest for long because our water taxi arrived about 20 minutes later. The water taxi is really nothing more than a motor boat. They really know how to pack people in those boats. We had about 20 people and a giant kayak hooked on back. It took us about half hour to get back to our original starting point where we first picked up our kayaks.

James was back at that same backpackers house we stayed at on Sunday night. He was wonderful because he had made a huge dinner for us full of bread, salad, and BBQ chicken/sausage. We took turns taking hot showers and after our delicious meal we crashed. It was still early so we turned on the Hunger Games, which made us feel even more hard core. :) After the movie it didn't take me long to fall asleep. What a day!!