"Sally! You Goonie!"

Okay, so I was lying about the whole Italian sonnet thing. If I had my Norton anthology of poetry with me I could maybe give it a go, but as I have no idea what the Italian sonnet form is, you'll just have to make to with plain, boring prose for this post. So Katie and I had a lovely few relaxing hours at Manhana Lodge after we had walked the Queen Charlotte; I don't think either of us wanted to leave the next morning but leave we did and got a boat back to Picton, and then a coach from Picton to Abel Tasman National Park which is right in the top left-hand corner of the South Island. Here it gets a little hazy for me for a while as I started feeling really poorly on the windy roads round the mountains, and had a nasty light-headed episode when we changed buses at Nelson. However, as soon as we arrived at Marahau and I was able to get off the coach I started feeling a lot better. We stayed in a lovely little three-bedroomed house (with our own room!) and proceeded to have two days of rest and not much else. Abel Tasman is pretty damn stunning with sandy beaches, blue sea and deep green hills. We spent our first day on the beach (having a pretty exciting time, but personally I think Katie should tell you about that!), the second I caught a boat further up the coast and walked a little into the park to Cleopatra's Pool, where the river skips down lots of big stones, making little mini waterfalls that you could slide down just like the bit in the Goonies before they find One Eyed Willy's ship! Of course I slid- I would have ended by slide by shouting "HEY YOU GUYYYYSSS!" at the top of my lungs like Sloth, but there was no one to shout to. I did hear one murmur that if you bathed in the pool you came out as beautiful as Cleopatra but I'm yet to see any evidence of it myself. I came out with a scraped elbow.
We left lovely little Marahau this morning at caught three buses to get to Kaikoura, where we are just now, about to have a lovely meal out as our hostel is minging and Katie is hungry. Methinks much shall be eaten. Aideu, aideu, to you and you and you!