-Chapter 35- Kayaking with 'Rae Garvey 2.0'

To visit Abel Tasman National Park, you can either do the Great Walk, which is a three-day hike, take a water taxi and be dropped off at a beach, or do the most common option: kayaking. We didn't want to miss out on the national park, and since kayaking was highly recommended and the cheapest option, we decided to give it a try. We drove as close as possible to the national park, to a place called Kaiteriteri. We also spent a day swimming at its amazing beach.

On Thursday, January 29th, it was finally time. At half past 7, the three of us were sitting in Flori's car. We were happy that we were so punctual and started our relaxed journey. Unfortunately, I forgot something and we had to go back to the campsite, so we ended up being late after all.

Flori drove like a maniac in his hearse on the empty streets, and since we were on the edge of the national park, we navigated through incredibly tight turns, going up the steep mountains. Celina and I, sitting together on a seat, had to hold on to each other and watch out of the corner of our eyes as Flori, wearing a baseball cap, spun the steering wheel, accelerated and then braked again in the turns, making him look like a bus driver on a chase. When we arrived at the national park, we had to find the right kayak rental place first. We were immediately waved through and then waited in our group with 6 other people for our kayak instructor, one of the unfriendliest people we met in New Zealand. He looked a bit like Rae Garvey, only blond and thin. Here's our assumption: He used to be a successful kayaker, but now nobody cares about him anymore and he spends his days teaching annoying tourists like us how to kayak. He raised the corners of his mouth only once during the day when an older guy from our group asked him something, and spoke as if everything was pissing him off. First, he monotonously rattled off the safety briefing, then we had to practice the paddle movement in a circle, and other basic exercises, like flipping the kayak upside down in case of capsizing and so on. Celina and I had never kayaked before, and Flori had only done it once a long time ago with his family. We did our best, but we were pretty stupid at it, and the guy tried to ignore us as much as possible. When he was explaining to all the helmsmen how to adjust the pedals, he stood 5 meters behind Celina at the first kayak. The clumsy Germans tried in vain to push Celina's pedals back. When Rae came over, we asked him for help, to which he replied, "But I just explained it." It wasn't until I annoyedly replied, "Okayyy!" that he made an attempt to show Celina, but he couldn't resist saying, "It's easy!"

Feeling quite discouraged and tense after this instruction, which took a total of two hours, we were driven to the sea. (Rae helped everyone except us with carrying, so we had to lift the boats onto the cart by ourselves). It was low tide when we arrived, and the tractor driver drove us a bit further across the mudflats. The boats were lifted into the water, and we were supposed to get in. That went pretty well, but Rae had already paddled out about 30 meters with two other kayakers when Celina and I desperately tried to go in the same direction in our tandem kayak. We drifted along the shore and yelled at each other, but we were still too stupid. It wasn't until a tractor driver waded into the water and calmly explained to us that we had to unfold the rudder ("ohh!") that we were able to paddle to Rae and the others. He had already started with practical exercises, which we frantically tried to imitate. Turning, flipping, turning to the right, turning to the left, flipping again. We had to constantly rethink and coordinate who would use which side of the paddle, and we did everything too slowly. This exercise lasted less than five minutes because Rae only allowed a few seconds to imitate it. Then I heard him say goodbye to the others and explain that he had to spend more time with us. That was really embarrassing. Clearly annoyed, he said that he couldn't let us go kayaking like that. (At first, Flori and I thought he wanted to take the kayak away from us and send us home after the terrible instruction). He asked who spoke the best English to translate for the others. Because he believed that we were kayaking so poorly because we didn't understand him. He was mistaken. With a German Rae, it would have been just as difficult for me to distinguish between right and left. Celina and I had a déjà vu of Taron's Kiwi farm. No one dared to say they spoke the best English because what kind of mean question was that anyway? Our English skills are all equally good or bad, depending on how you see it. Hesitantly, Flori and I both agreed to translate. From then on, he only spoke to Flori (#metoo) and shouted "Translate!" after every sentence as if Celina and I couldn't understand a word of English, even though we understood just as much as he did. After 5 minutes, he finally let us go. After that, we didn't have any more problems with kayaking. We didn't paddle as fast as the others, but it was actually fun and not too exhausting. After paddling along the ebb beach for a while, with Flori always in front of or next to us, we were finally in the national park. We could see a lot of beautiful beaches, accompanied by jungle noises and dense rainforest. After an hour, we took a lunch break at a long sandy beach.

Our next destination was the island opposite the mainland, where we were supposed to see seals. It was further away than it looked, but in the end, we were close enough to see a huge seal lying lazily on its rock, roaring loudly. A little further on, we could see more seals. It was really amazing. Where else can you see seals up close like that? Celina and I paddled back to the mainland, thinking Flori would follow us. But he continued around the island and we lost each other. We waited on a beach for half an hour, then slowly started making our way back, slightly worried about Flori (a few guys had to push us in the right direction after we elegantly got into the kayak). After what felt like an eternity, we passed a beach that was 50 meters away, where a lone person was walking. Celina immediately recognized Flori, just by his way of walking :D Indeed, he waved to us and we waited until he got back into his kayak and paddled towards us. (At this beach, Flori dropped his phone in the sand and a wave splashed over it. Since then, the speaker has been acting up). Shortly before the endpoint, we stopped at a small beach that we had all to ourselves, and Celina got stung by a wasp.

When we arrived at the shore after 5.5 hours, along with a lot of other kayakers, Rae was already waiting with a few other people from the kayak rental. We unloaded our kayak and wanted to go back to the rental place, but Rae didn't pay attention to us. Instead, he went towards a couple from our morning group who arrived 10 minutes after us and lifted their kayak onto the cart. We carried our kayak to the tractor by ourselves, but were still being ignored. When Celina and Flori wanted to lift the kayak onto the cart, Rae said without looking at them, "wait for the next one" and drove away. So we sat on the beach alone for a few more minutes, as everyone else had already left on their way back, and had to take the next tractor. In the end, we had to wash everything ourselves before we were allowed to leave. Rae didn't even give us a glance.

All in all, the day was definitely eventful. However, we're not sure if this excursion was really worth it...

-> To be continued