Compass Whistlethe musings of two whirled travelers

The drive from Charleston to our lodge just outside of Abel Tasman National Park on the sixth day of our trek would take approximately 3 hours if one were to drive straight through, but it’s worth spending an extra couple of hours to explore Cape Foulwind.  This negatively named area of the West Coast was originally named Rocky Cape by Abel Tasman, the first European to visit it, but Captain James Cook whose ship,The Endeavour, encountered a large storm here in 1770, gave the cape its present name.  There is a 1.5 hour walking track that travels from the end of Cape Foulwind Road to the carpark at Tauranga Bay.  If you have the time, you can walk the entire distance, but you will need to find transport back or walk the same track backwards since it is not a loop track.  The north end of the track, by Cape Foulwind Road is highlighted by beautiful views of the Cape Foulwind Lighthouse and the old limestone rock quarry.  The real highlight of the track, however, is the Fur Seal colony located 10 minutes walking from the Tauranga Car Park.  The track is well formed

Baby seals!

and there are viewing platforms located about 50 feet above the colony with interpretive panels describing the seal colony and the life cycle of the fur seals.  Since the females stay at the colony year round to nurse their pups there is apparently good viewing any time of the year, but November-January is the most active when the males return to find mates.  We were lucky to see several males, females, and numerous young pups all playing in the rough seas during our visit.  If you’re only interested in seeing the lighthouse and seal colony, both are located 10-15 minutes walking from the car parks at either end of the walking track and can easily be reached quickly by car.

The fur seal colony was also where Her had her first major bout of “Lens Envy”.  This is when Her sees another semi-serious photographer, usually a Japanese man, who has a camera lens that is larger than her own.  If the other individual’s camera is a Canon, Her’s brand of choice, the Lens Envy is multiplied.  If the offending individual also has no clue what they are doing, the level of Lens Envy goes through the roof.

“Do you see her lens?!” Her asked me in a hushed tone.

“What about it?” I asked.

“It has so many dials and knobs that I don’t even know what they do!”

Luckily, after speaking to the woman, who turned out not to be a Japanese man but was instead from Australia, Her learned that the lens, although quite fast, only zoomed to 200mm of focal length vs the 300mm zoom of Her’s telephoto lens.  This mitigated the Lens Envy a little, but Her was confident the large and impressive looking Nikon lens the woman sported on her Nikon SLR was superior to her own telephoto in terms of speed.

“It has to be faster, just look at how many dials it has!”

We left Cape Foulwind and stopped in nearby Westport to fuel up and stock up on supplies.  We mistakenly believed that the last town before Abel Tasman Park, Motueka, was small and wouldn’t have inexpensive fuel or a New World shopping store (we were still using font size as our indicator for town size).  In fact, Motueka is a very large tourist-oriented town with numerous gas stations, grocery stores, and lodging.  It is a launching point for tours into the park and has everything a tourist needs — including slightly cheaper fuel than what we paid in Westport.  If you are staying near Abel Tasman park, however, do stock up on supplies.  There are no major grocery stores beyond Motueka and you will pay exorbitant prices for just the most basic of foods at the small groceries in the towns near the park.  Motueka also has a large information site with very helpful people.  We didn’t know exactly where our hotel was located, and they were able to give us the brochure for the hotel and drew on a tourist map for us.  The roads outside Motueka are confusing however,

Paper Sis nativity photobomb

and we still managed to get lost several times, but this led to some unexpected finds including a farm growing hops, a sheep farm full of sheep to frighten, and a small church next door to a sheep farm with a nativity scene created using sheep’s wool.  Her, of course, used the opportunity to jump the barbed wire fence — obviously just a suggestion to not trespass — and persuade me to take dozens of photos with Paper Sis photobombing the nativity scene, making me an accomplice to both trespassing and whatever moral offense it is to photograph a paper cutout of your sister-in-law in a nativity scene, though I don’t recall that ever being mentioned as a sin during my four years of Catholic education.

We soon arrived at our destination, Kanuka Ridge Abel Tasman Backpackers Lodge, for two nights.  The thought of not having to drive for an entire day appealed to me greatly.  And the thought of immediately taking a nap appealed to Her greatly.  After checking in, Her bedded down for a few hours while I did some exploring and met our new neighbors for the next couple of days — two German couples celebrating Christmas with a large Christmas Eve meal and a young man from Boston.  We all chatted for a little bit and shared

Our holiday home

some wine.  The lodge had a very nice shared living area and a well-equipped kitchen that made cooking very easy.  However screens on the windows would have made a huge difference.  The summer weather was quite warm, but leaving the windows open meant that hundreds of small insects would invade our room within minutes.