Salmon and Abel Tasman (with Farewell Spit too)

 There really isn't much to say about the morning. It was just another day in the south island. The only different thing about this morning was that there was a small family that came and enjoyed a picnic at the rest area we stayed at.  

We hit the road and were headed to Nelson. In one of the brochures we saw a salmon farm where you are given a pole and bait and you get to go catch your fish for free. Then once you make your catch you kill it (by sticking a nail through the back of its head), throw it in a cooler, bring the dead fish up to where you rented the pole and have them fillet it. Then they charge you by the kg for the fish and you have the option of having them smoke the fillets for you. We went for it and got the fillets smoked. Each fillet had a different seasoning.

Trying to get the bastards to bite

Our fresh fish (one of the best meals we had)

There were three sheep that were chillin in the fishing area.

On our way out of the salmon farm there was a small fence with a rolling hill. Suddenly a young stag came strolling down and walked up to the fence asking us to pet him. So we did.

Some Pukeko's in a neighboring field

After the salmon farm we decided to just check out the area. We drove up to Abel Tasman National park, which is known to be a beautiful coastal park with golden beaches. That's why the bay is called Golden Bay (although the day was a bit grey). One attraction we stopped at was Te Waikoropupu Springs, otherwise known as Pupu springs. It is known for the waters clarity (some of the clearest spring water in the world) and it pumps about 14,000 litres of water a second in to the springs. It is also supposed to be a very spiritual place to the Maori people.

Mirror that looked down into the water

Me

The next thing we did (after chilling in town for a bit discussing what we should do) was go and visit Farewell Spit. Farewell spit is the beach land at the very very tip of the south island. The land is also recognized as a dune. We didn't get to walk the whole spit but we did walk out into the dunes a bit as the sun went down.

Black Swans (I'm pretty sure they are endemic to New Zealand and Australia but I'm not 100% sure)

Very beautiful

These little guys were all over the place.

Walking up to the Dunes

The dunes were another beautiful end to a day. It seems that we lucked out and picked pretty prime times of the day to view some of the things we did. The spit was incredibly quiet and serene and the black swans out in the ocean topped it all off. I had no idea they would go out to salt water. I have to reserve one blog post to discuss New Zealand native birds since there are so many beautiful endemic species. Many of them are extinct or will be in the near future. It is a very interesting subject that I hope to be able to put some time into studying.

Anyways that was the spit. There is so much more I can say about many of the places we visit but I am trying to keep these posts somewhat short for convenience sake. Hopefully I will have time to sit down and expand on some of these experiences to breathe some life back into my memories. 

We only had two more days left and perhaps Farewell spits sunset was the islands first goodbye to us. It was a pretty fantastic effort.

We left Abel Tasman and headed back through the windy roads of the mountains to Nelson in order to find a place to sleep. It was a rather lengthy and stressful search since we were in a much more urbanized area. We finally found a place along the side of the road (literally) and decided we would just have to make it work. It definitely was not an area for a tent but we found a place in some bush where we could hide. Bottom line is we made it work. We had to do some skydiving tomorrow any ways. 

Date: 4/16/12 (16/4/12)