Catch up on Christmas and New Year's.

Catch up on Christmas and New Year's.

Welcome to our new blog. The reason for starting up a blog is to communicate our activities to friends and family when we move to Singapore. Since we have only just started this blog, we missed posting our Christmas and New Year's activitites. So here's a bit of an update.

I spent Christmas Day with my family in Wellington, and Blake was with his is Nelson. I joined him there on the 28th and we had a few days relaxing at the beach and catching up with Blake's old school friends.

On the 1st of January (whose idea was that?) we set off for the first day of our three day hike in the Abel Tasman. We started in Marahau and finished in Awaroa, where we were intending to stay in a bach owned by the parent's of blake's brother's girlfriend.

Unfortunately we both forgot our cameras so we used disposible ones which we haven't got developed yet (watch this space.)

We walked around 10km each day (3-4 hours worth) of mostly easy tracks. there were a few uphills that felt pretty long with our massive heavy packs on our backs. We progressively got more and more used to the heavy weight on our backs but on the first day (with mild New Year's eve hangovers) we collapsed at the campsite and feel asleep as soon as we pitched the tent (we had just intended to lie down for a moment...).

 

We camped at Anchorage and then Bark Bay and went on to Awaroa. It was the most beautiful landscape and the most fantastic walk - I would highly recommend it and wouldn't hesitate to do it again in a flash. The walk takes in beautiful lush tropical forest, beech forest and stunning white sand beaches. The scenery changes all the time and you just can't believe how beautiful it is. There are amazing views along the way, and the campsites are clean and well maintained.

We had a swim on the second day, mostly to wash off two day's worth of sweat. I have to say that despite the beauty and the tropical appearance of the clean turquoise water, the sea is not warm. In fact i nearly succumbed to hypothermia when i took my very brief dip.

 

On the third day our walk took us along a long curved white-sand bay, toward an estuary crossing - to our delight, we were accompanied some of the way down it by a couple of dolphins - really close to the beach, leaping and tearing along in the water. I have never been so close to wild dolphins before and couldn't believe our luck.

That afternoon we came into Awaroa and it was time to find the bach (Rachel's) where we were staying. Blake appeared to be unsure of the direction and took me 'off-roading' down some gorse-covered tracks, across someone's front lawn and down a steep bank. Just when I was starting to become sceptical about his navigation skills, we came out onto a beautiful long beach - Awaroa beach.

 

We walked along the beach some way but I was still not convinced Blake knew where we were going. He stopped to find something in his pack so I sat down on a sand dune to rest my sore feet. Lucky I did sit down, because that was the moment that Blake pulled out a ring and asked me to marry him. I said "yes" of course.

Blake and I go for a happy walk the day after our engagement

And that wasn't the only surprise in store - we weren't actually staying at Rachel's bach, Blake had booked us in to stay at the luxury Awaroa Lodge. So the perfect finale for a three day hike and two nights camping - a couple of night's luxury and a bottle of champagne to celebrate. we did get a few photos around this time as Blake's family were staying in Awaroa too, and we were all able to have some celebrations together.

Us boating around the area with Blake's brother Sam.