The Abel Tasman

We drove down from the hills of the Marlborough Sounds yesterday and into the town of Nelson. The drive was gorgeous and I think we spent more time pulling over to admire the views that we did actually driving.

After stopping briefly in Nelson to do some much needed grocery shopping, we headed north another 12 km to the town of Mapua and set up camp at the DOC campground. It was quiet there; we had ocean property for the night and best of all it was cheap.

This morning we woke up all set to begin preparations for the Abel Tasman Coastal Trek. First, we slept in late, necessary to prevent fatigue. Then we had a hearty carbo-building breakfast, essential for stamina, and went back to sleep, thus prevented burning off too much of that carbo-meal with activity. Later we took a leisurely stroll through Motueka to visit the flea market, an activity especially useful for building immunity against sand fleas. It was a well spent vegging day. It is important not to embark on these lengthy treks unprepared.

At about 3:30 in the afternoon, I decided that being somewhat domestic wouldn't drain all the stamina I had built up during the day so I did a load of laundry. Having only brought a three days supply of clothing with us to New Zealand, laundry is one thing we can't avoid for too long. I emptied the contents of our $8.50 plastic food bin onto the back seat, filled it with water, added a dash of generic heavy duty detergent and rolled up my sleeves.

We'd been given a fifty foot phone cord which John strong between two trees. (Until this point, we hadn't known what to use it for). I swished, John squished and Mother Nature provided the air cycle. Within four hours the clothes were dry, everything was folded neatly and I was stuffing it all back into our stuff sacks. With a good night's rest to replenish spent energy, we'd be all set for three days on the trail.