Day 11 - Extra day at Abel Tasman

The last thing I said in my last post was "It was an uneventful evening". Well, the night had some excitement: the storm that gave us all-day rain whipped into a pretty powerful wind and rain storm. It woke both of us, not simply because of the wind, but because the wind was whipping the small trees against the side of our cabin ... the result of which sounded like an entire hockey team banging their hockey sticks against the outside walls.

This went on for hours, so we had our second night in a row of very broken sleep.

Soon after we woke, and for the rest of the day, we had brilliant sunshine. We had breakfast, dried out our things in the sun, then hopped on the bus for some local exploring. We stopped at a great lookout (Hawks Lookout), then at Kaiteriteri: a great beachside town. We had lunch and wandered the beach, while some went for a swim in the Tasman Sea.

We stopped for groceries on our way back. Once back, we had an hour or two of free time before going to dinner at The Park Cafe at 7PM. That was interesting, because we ordered right away, but half of us got food after 8:30, and the rest of us, not until almost 9:30. Apparently some of our orders got lost between the table and the kitchen. They only comped us a drink for our troubles.

As us late ones finished our meals, the Super-Duper moon came over the horizon. We walked home and chatted by the fireplace. Then the two of us went out to identify the Southern Cross constellation.