Today, we woke up early to go kayaking on the Abel Tasman seas. I had booked a full day kayak trip called the Royale with Cheese with Kaiteriteri Kayaks. This company was one of the few that still operated during winter, and provided free transfers from Nelson to the Abel Tasman park, and included a free lunch as well.

The pickup from Green Monkey was at 7.10am, and they arrived promptly. There were two other guys in the bus with us, a Welshman named Dave, and a German caller Julius. We passed the time chatting with them, and Terence bonded with Dave over some football talk.

When we arrived at their base, we met our guide for the day and he briefed us on our itinerary. The company was very professional, even providing us with additional clothing, should we need it. There were fleece jackets, as well as thermal tops and leggings available. They did mention that as the day was going to be sunny, they didn’t think we would need the additional clothes, but if we wanted to, we were free to take anything we liked. Terence decided to borrow the thermal leggings which were bright stripey blue, and he looked hilarious!

Our guide briefed us on the kayaking equipment we would need, and procedures of launching / beaching the kayaks and then we were ready to go. There were five kayaks in total, which meant ten people including the guide. For some reason, Terence and I were always the last ones, I blame it on our kayak, or our paddles! There must’ve been something wrong with them.

My arms really started to ache midway through the morning, but there were quite a few pauses in between where the guide provided some explanations, giving me enough time to rest. We landed at a nice beach for a lunch break, where we had soup, bread and coffee.

The guide then took us up a path, which provided us a beautiful view of the beach, with our kayaks on the sand below.

We continued on with our kayak journey in the afternoon, and managed to see quite a bit of wildlife, including some seals! We didn’t really manage to get any good photos of the seals, though. After paddling about 19 kms, we landed at another beach, and were picked up by the aqua taxi to go back to our base.

My arms were aching like crazy by this time, and my cargo pants were soaked from the kayaking. With the wind blowing, I was freezing! I was just so thankful that it was sunny for the entire day, I read previously in other peoples’ blogs that on their kayaking trip it rained, and it was miserable weather. My advice for people going kayaking in the winter, bring spare clothes, and always bring your sunglasses! I almost didn’t bring it because I thought it wouldn’t be necessary, but the sun was pretty strong! All in all, it was a lovely day, and a nice rest from the long drive we had the previous day.

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