Kayak tour in Abel Tasman National Park

As mentioned before, we had planned a recommended tour in Abel Tasman National Park, where we were supposed to kayak for 2 days and hike for one day. So we headed to Marahau, a town where the national park begins, to book the tour. We had been checking the weather on site from time to time and decided to start the tour directly the next day due to the good outlooks.

So we spent the rest of the day preparing for the tour by going shopping (not so easy when you have to have dinner without a gas cooker), drying our still damp tent from Stewart Island, and packing our backpack.

The next morning, we went early to Marahau. After surprisingly managing to fit all our luggage into the double kayak and completing the briefing with our coach Lucas, we could finally get started.
We paddled past beautiful bays and had the opportunity to kayak to Adele Island, where there was supposed to be a seal colony. As we approached the island, other kayak riders drew our attention to a small penguin that dived under our boat, surfaced 1 meter next to us, looked at us and then disappeared. It was pretty cute to be able to see a penguin up close and in action! Of course, we also saw the seals lounging on the rocks.

After an exhausting passage called the 'Mad Mile,' where the water was much rougher than before, we took a break in the beautiful 'Te Pukatea' Bay. The previously cloudy sky cleared up a bit, so we could enjoy the break in warmth.
After the break, it was only a few minutes until we reached our destination for the day, Anchorage. There we spent the afternoon on the beach, set up our tent, and fell asleep exhausted in our 'bed' in the evening (well, rather on our paper-thin sleeping mats...).

The next morning, the campsite ranger gave us high hopes of seeing dolphins, as he informed us that today would be a good day and there were many dolphins out there. So we hurried with breakfast and reloading our kayak and set off into the cloudless day. The water was still very calm, so we could paddle off in a relaxed manner. Since many people only rent a kayak for the first leg, there were hardly any boats on the water on day 2, so at times we were completely alone. We paddled leisurely 8 km to our second destination, Onetahuti, unfortunately without seeing the dolphins we had hoped for.
On the way there, we took some detours to see the smaller seal colonies on the surrounding smaller islands. On one of these islands, Pinnacle Island, we saw smaller seals playing in the water between the rocks. The first time we saw seals not just lying around! But this week should not be the last time we see them :)

Arriving at Onetahuti, we had to completely unload our kayak, as it was supposed to be brought back to Marahau by a water taxi in the afternoon. After a refreshing swim in the cold but turquoise-clear sea, we made ourselves comfortable in a kind of 'seating option in the trees' (hard to explain, see picture :D), next to which we set up our tent. From there, we had a beautiful view of the beach and the sunset, and we stayed there until it got dark.
After another almost sleepless night in the 'luxury' tent and bed, we had to squeeze all our stuff into just one backpack. The weather was just as good as yesterday, so there was not a single cloud in the sky, and we were already woken up by the warm sun in the tent (at least I woke Axel up :D).
Unfortunately, we overslept the sunrise in the morning because we did not expect the sun to rise directly in front of our noses.
Once we had everything more or less packed, we had to hurry to cross the 'Awaroa Inlet,' a kind of sandbank inland, still at low tide.
Without a break and as fast as possible, we tackled the hilly hiking trail, and after the 2 hours, we were pretty out of breath.
Since we still had 4 hours until the water taxi would take us back to our car in Marahau, we walked comfortably for the next 2 hours, with many small breaks. The ride with the water taxi was not as expected, with the motto 'then we can take a close look at the whole national park,' but rather very wild, and we were shaken up quite a bit and even got wet.

Exhausted, we drove to a campsite in the evening and fell into the now truly comfortable and almost luxurious bed after dinner and a warm shower.