Wonderfully Wild Adventure

  If you want to see the Charlotte Sounds, this is the way to do it! What an amazing experience! Best day of “work” ever, sailing around and dropping off all the mail to the residents around Charlotte Sounds who can only be accessed by boat. Sometimes even delivering their groceries. Many times we were welcomed by some very excited wagging tales as the doggies got  excited for their biscuit from the mail man! It was fascinating to see these houses with their owners living off the grid, getting their electricity from solar panels, and with no neighbours in clear site. The views they have are stunning, and all is particularly spectacular on a sunny day like we had. We were lucky enough to encounter some dolphins as well, which was just magical to see. So many of them, swimming right up and under our boat! Our skipper did a great job of letting us know about the history of the sounds, along with some of the predator free islands for birds that the Department of Conservation look after. A

We decided that the most relaxing and peaceful way to observe the Abel Tasman was by freedom kayaking, basically you just rent a kayak for the day and get to go off and do your own thing. This was great as it meant we could go at our own pace, stop where we wanted to and spend as long as we liked in places. So we enjoyed our own two private beaches, one we stopped at and had our packed lunch (gourmet sandwiches, crisps and a can of tinned peaches!), then the other we stopped at for some sunbathing and a swim whilst looking over at the Abel Tasman. We mastered our landing and taking off, after getting a bit wet on the first landing! We also ventured over to see the fur seals and saw some pups from last year, and a random penguin chilling on the water! Although maybe relaxing isn’t the right word for this entirely as after a while the rowing motion gets a bit hard on the arms and shoulders, it was nice to be able to chill on the kayak, especially on the way back as the wind was with us s

  Milford Sounds is the eighth wonder of the world and a highlight to anyones trip in New Zealand. Sometimes with these things though, the excursions and activities you can do there soon rack up a lot of money. So we did Milford Sounds on a budget, and still got to take in its breath taking views and go on a boat! Firstly, if you are campervanners like us, then you will want to find somewhere to sleep the night before on the way as it is good to get there really early and get the free parking (more on that in a bit). We stayed at Knobs Flat (1 hour from Milford Sounds) which was $20 per person and included unlimited hot powerful showers! Plus a kitchen to use and flushing toilets. Generally $20 per person is expensive for campsites, but it is by far one of the cheapest on the way to Milford Sounds. You can of course opt to stay in a Department of Conversation (DOC) site for $15 each, but theres no showers and they are long drop toilets. We enjoyed Knobs Flat and the lady who checked us