Pancake Day

FORMAL APOLOGY
- Kaz and Arts Camper Van Chronicles would like to formally apologise to everyone living in the Southern Hemisphere for calling the Tasman Sea the Tasmanian Sea!! Clearly an unforgivable mistake:o) .......and thanks to Sharyn from Sydney for bringing this error to our attention and pointing out that geographers should know better ............ clearly a limited understanding of huge range of topics covered by a geography degree:o)

PLAN UPDATE
- our plans to stay on the South Island have been thwarted! Unfortunately the trusty Van has to be returned to Auckland on the 19th. So revised plan - we will spend two days in the Abel Tasman National Park and then catch the ferry to the North Island.


The journey to Abel Tasman was as spectacular as it was long - taking about 8 hours.

We left the beach campsite - I skipped a shower at that one .....there were two showers in the corner of the lounge!.

The west coast was amazing, with very long, empty beaches and ragged cliffs.....






We stopped just before we turned inland to see the 'Pancake Rocks'











You can see the rock is make up of many very thin layers - and you'll be glad to know that the geologists are not sure how this has happened. The sea is constantly pounding the rocks and they are inevitably wearing away.....












As we travelled east we drove up the Buller valley - this was beautiful and we stopped to cross the longest suspension bridge in New Zealand - we are becoming pretty good at suspension bridges!























and the trusty van ploughed on eating up mile after mile until we arrived at Abel Tasman National Park.