Timothy’s Blog

They say you see a lot more stars up in the heavens when you look up to New Zealand’s night sky.

And that’s exactly where I am now, under a canopy of hundreds, perhaps thousands of stars.

My day started with an early morning Aqua taxi ride to the Abel Tasman National Park, the starting point of my day in the wilderness.

I am not a big fan of the wild, or of nature, but when I get to do it around a beach - I’m all for it.

I met my kayaking guide at the station and we both set out to hunt for seals. It was a two hour journey through the calm waters of the Tasman Sea to Tonga Island where seals usually sun themselves in a cold spring morning like today. But since we got there at the wrong time, there were only a handful of seals swimming about.

We paddled back to shore for a picnic lunch and then it was off to what is to be a highlight of this wilderness adventure I allowed myself to be part of.

The Awaroa Lodge at Abel Tasman National park. It is only accessible by boat or kayaks making the journey something really unforgettable. My arms were just in pain by the time I got to shore.

The lodge is more modern and chic than what I had expected. My room was a split level unit with the bedroom on the upper level and the living area and bathroom on the lower. The balcony faces the wilderness that is Abel Tasman National Park.

The Awaroa Londge is self sustaining and very environmentally friendly, so much so that I got lost just listening to it’s development director spell out the effort the company puts in to make sure Awaroa Lodge is number one not just in meeting it’s customer’s needs but also of the environment around it. In fact there are reminders everywhere to conserve water and energy because the supply is limited.

There are no TVs in the room and the best internet connection I can get is intermittent. Forget about your mobile phone, there is zero reception up here.

In a way the lodge really forces its guests to re-connect with nature…with nothing else to watch in the room, I found myself staring at the skies trying to count the stars and see if they match the number of sheep I counted on my way to the lodge.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 7:07 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.