what day is this, anyway?

• ok, i have a little more time now, though of course i forgot my card reader, so there might not be any photos, but here's what i've been doing the last few days . . .
• anyway - i enjoyed staying at that place. oh, except when i first arrived, i was tired and sweaty from traveling, so i dumped my stuff in my room (a six-bed dorm) and went straight to the shower. i came back wrapped in my towel to find a french guy sitting on the bed! i think he was as surprised as i was. i'd thought the room was all women. needless to say, i grabbed my clothes and went straight back to the bathroom.
• 
• friday i did get up early and go for a hike before i got on the bus to nelson. it took me a while to find the trailhead - things like that don't tend to be very well marked here, and though i had a map, the streets weren't all signposted, either! i didn't see anyone else on the way up, and the views from the top were terrific, looking out over picton, the harbor, and marlborough sound, which i'd passed through two days earlier on the ferry.
• there's nothing to say about the bus ride to nelson, except that it was shorter than i expected - never a bad thing. the bus conveniently dropped me off right in front of the i-site, which is where you can find all kinds of tourist information and book activities, travel, and accomodation. every town seems to have one, anyway, all the towns i've been in. it's a great service.
• so from nelson i was hoping to get to the heaphy track - but there was nothing going that worked on the time i had, and i was kind of disappointed. it turns out you can't really just go and come back in one day - i mean, i knew it was a four to six day walk to do the whole thing, and for that you book in advance, but they don't really have day-hike options, which is what i wanted. i was kind of bummed about that.
• however - since that didn't work out, i said to myself, my dad would never miss a chance to get on a boat! so i booked a water-taxi and sea-kayaking trip in the abel tasman national park instead. that was all day saturday - the bus picked me up at 6.50 am (yeah, that's right, ten to seven - i got up, voluntarily, well before dawn). it was loads of fun. we took the bus to the beach in kaiteriteri (a good hour-long drive) and from there a water-taxi to another beach where we launched our kayaks.
• it was a tiny group - me, the kiwi guide, and a german couple. we used double kayaks, so since i was traveling by myself, i ended up with the guide, who was very friendly and kind of flirty with me all day (i tried to enjoy the attention, but i'm not so good at that sort of thing). we kayaked for some time, towards a tiny bay where we found three baby seals playing among the rocks and tide pools. i got some good pictures - they were right next to and swimming under the kayak! that was a real highlight.
• after some additional kayaking, we stopped at a beach for lunch - i was pretty cold even sitting in the sun, i guess from stopping the hard work of paddling - but it looked like something off a postcard: golden sand, sparkling blue water, the occasional small island visible here and there, and hardly another person in sight. the place was gorgeous. after lunch, we paddled a short way back to the beach we started on, where we waited a few minutes for the water-taxi to take us back to kaiteriteri and the bus. i was really tired and my left arm was so sore - like tennis elbow or something, from paddling - but i'd had so much fun.
• and - that's all for now folks, i'm pretty much out of time . . . more to follow.