abel tasman and peanut butter world may 18-21

Friday morning assembly at school- Lu was getting an award for writing. Go, Lu!

Violet joining in the selfie game.

Abel Tasman National Park! AT is on the northern most part of the south island-it is also

NZ's smallest park, but the most visited. The great walk is a coast walk, so lots of beaches to visit and gorgeous coast to look at! There are a

water taxies to bring you to different parts of the track, and if you were doing the whole track, you have to really watch the tides as you can only cross during low tide (or take a much longer route inland). So lots of logistics! Plan-first night in a hut, hike about 2.5 hours, next night in a tent in a beach campground, hike another 2.5 hrs to shuttle pick up location.

Split apple rock! Made from granite. Shaped like an apple. That is split.

Frank is borrowing our camera (this was our wedding present from my lovely siblings, it's still going strong!).

Lots of golden beaches!

Lucy! On a boat!

Checking out the seal colony. I didn't get any pictures of the seals, nuts!

Weeeeeee!

Magda prefers the indoors.

Nice and cozy!

Loving the sun!

Violet/Van decided to add her two cents for a bit of this, but very intermittently.

V-we were on a boat. We were on the top of the boat. There were seats on the bottom of the boat.

Our drop off.

The hut had so many wekas looking for crumbs! There were warnings all over that the cheeky wekas try to get into your food/tents/bags!

Van-it was a beautiful hut, it was like a maze or a hotel, ok??

You can see why this place can be so busy in the summer!

The girls debating the merits of going into the water...

Frank was the first one to get into her suit. notice that I am still wearing my fleece.

Crazies! Magda and I stayed on shore.

The tide was going out, and the sand was very jumpable.

Short walk to another beach-Frank practicing her jumps!

Baby weka comes to visit!

Hut with a view.

Van-we were at the hut having dinner. we had nachos for dinner. And me and Frankie wanted chips. Lucy had only chips. but she still had nachos.

Night time views.

Packed up and moving on!

Van-we were walking to the campsite and Lucy was feeling bad so we go'ed on a boat. (more on that in a bit)

Aren't they so cute?!?

Up and up and up and up some more!

Frank matches the scenery.

And lest you think it is all fun and games...as we started this morning, Lu wasn't feeling the best-so her bag got lightened and we took more breaks. But this is the girl who is usually ahead of everyone-and she just wasn't feeling well. Van was just a sad sack for unknown reasons. So after much debate and sadness (Frank really wanted to camp) we (Josh) used the high point/reception to order up a water taxi-but we still needed to make the 2.5 hr hike to meet the boat... so they powered through. Good kids.

hello pretty shroom!

Van- there was a little mushroom...on a tree...and it never stopped growing till it peed! (singsong, with a very nice cackle at the end)

Made it with time to spare! Good thing we headed out, as lu did not have a nice night (fevers, lost a tooth!), and it would have been all that much more fun in a tent.

Van- we were finding shells and putting them back in the water where they belonged.

Back to Kaiterteri town!

Van- we were going to the park but mommy said I wanna take a picture, I wanna take a picture .

Fun at the park-the kids will really miss these!

Van-we were on the flying fox. Oh, do you know what a flying fox is? A flying fox is where there's this thing and it has a seat on it and we wrap our legs around it and Frankie was pulling everybody.

Van-I was on the flying fox!

Van-we were at a boba place and I had a strawberry boba things and it popped.

V-we were at a peanut butter factory, and we could make our own peanut butter. She (our tour guide) showed us around and she got peanuts and there was a table and a machine on top of it and the peanuts were in the machine and we rode a bike and that made the peanuts do their thing. And we could eat it and we could buy chocolate peanut butter.

Factory fun!

Cute girls.

V-This is where we make the peanut butter, see what I was talking about? See how it has a star on the bike it looks like it was on the bottom of the table.

We love peanut butter. Pic's is even better because it is only peanuts and salt! Hooray!