Nelson and Our Visit to Abel Tasman

 You can see that we had another beautiful day for my trip on the boat to tour Abel Tasman   park. Many people take this boat to do trekking through the woods or to kayak from one place and get picked up at another.  We stayed in Nelson which is pretty close and a nice little town.  Our hotel was the Arcadia and Andy and his wife were wonderful hosts.  We found that these small independently run hotels were excellent.  I booked based on reviews rather than looking for the cheapest place. We had exceptional luck throughout New Zealand staying at lots of nice places. 

This was just some more of the wonderful scenery with the blue Tasman Sea.  I loved the rocks everywhere.

More beautiful fall colors!!

Beautiful pristine beaches!  A funny story happened on our way to our motel in Nelson.  We have been using a GPS (dear husband purchased a used chip for our Garmin before leaving home).  She has been a life saver for the most part but in Nelson she led us to a dirt road that led to nowhere!!!  Seems Warren had not put in the address completely correctly!!  We got to see lots of scenery though.

I really liked the rocks a lot!!

Here are two Shags (Cormorants) with a Great Cormorant joining them.

This is a Black Backed Gull which we saw everywhere along with the Red Billed Gulls.

There were many New Zealand Fur Seals on an outcropping of rocks.  I think head on they look like little old men!

This is a Variable Oystercatcher.  Some are black and white but there were a bunch that were pure black as well.

This was a whole beach full of South Island Oystercatchers which look a lot like the ones from home!!  There were a few of the solid black ones in here as well.