We got up early AGAIN (notice a theme on this trip??) so that we could leave by 7 to drive to Abel Tasman National Park. The hostel provided breakfast (toast and cereal) so we ate that before we left and brought packed lunches of PB&J’s, apples and muesli bars (granola bars). The drive only took an hour, which was less than we had expected, so we were there really early. Our boat wasn’t leaving for a while, so some of us took naps in the car while we waited.
We had booked a “cruise and walk” where we took a small water taxi ride for about an hour, they dropped us off in the national park and then we went on a hike to another bay where they picked us up later on in the day. We had 4 and ½ hours to do a 4 hour hike, but we did it in 3 hours and 35 minutes. In total, we hiked 13 km that day. The scenery was absolutely beautiful and we were just snapping pictures left and right. 
We were walking along the coast, from bay to bay, but had to climb up hills through the forest at times as well. 
The hike was actually more strenuous than I was expecting it to be – there were several uphill parts that were pretty steep and lasted for a little while. But everyone did it and we had fun.
The water was a beautiful blue green color and we had a gorgeous sunny day. 
It was actually a nice temperature out too, especially compared to the cold weather we had had the previous few days. I started out wearing leggings, jeans, a tank top, 2 long sleeve shirts, a short sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt and my Northface jacket (these are all of the layers I had been wearing for the past 2 days), but as we were walking, I began to peel layers off until I just had my tank top and 1 long sleeve shirt on.
We ate our packed lunches on the beach and it was just so pretty. Here's the beach we ate at, with Brian and Rich pretending to throw Dana into the water:
I had heard about how beautiful Abel Tasman was (and that was one of the reasons why I really wanted to take this trip back to the South Island because we didn’t make it up there the first time) but seeing it in person was just incredible. One of the parts on the tramp (Kiwi for hike) through the woods crossed over a swing bridge! It was actually a pretty scary bridge because it was a long way down and there was a sign saying that a max of 5 people could be on the bridge at once. Don’t worry, we only lost one person though! (Just kidding!)
We made our way to Torrent Bay, where the boat came to pick us back up. There was a tree swing on the beach and we played on that for a little bit while waiting. Then, when we got back to the car, we went and played on a zipline (called Flying Fox here) before heading out. Two big themes of this trip were getting up before the sunrise and playing on playgrounds/ziplines/swingsets!Here's Cate, Kim, Me and Kelly overlooking Torrent Bay:
Back at the hostel, I took a 40 minute nap and then got up to get the free soup from the hostel. It was homemade vegetable soup and was actually quite yummy! We ate our soup while watching Mission Impossible 3 on the TV in the common room. We made pasta for dinner and then played Monopoly after dinner. It was a nice relaxing night and we were all exhausted from the hike and from getting up early the past few days.
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