In the hostel in Nelson were a whole bunch of leaflets about sea-kayaking in the Abel Tasman national park, which looked wonderful. Because Mikey and I have decided to avoid small boats supposedly under our control for the forseeable future, we thought we'd just go and have a look at the area instead. Another gorgeous drive through forests and mountain scenery took a couple of hours, and we stopped periodically to take photos and wander down tracks to view points. At one car park was a sign asking people not to feed the kea, the alpine parrots, because they become too tame. It also said that if you leave your car in that area it is possible that the parrots will wreck it - they particularly like the rubber round windscreens and have been known to wait until the glass falls in and then search the car for food. We didn't get to see any, unfortunately, but there were more mountains and forested valleys.

It was another beautiful, warm day, and we stopped by a beach for lunch. After our customary picnic, we went for a walk. The tide was out and the sand stretched for at least half a mile before it reached the water. There were a couple of big rivers flowing through the beach, which took a bit of planning to cross. In some places the sand was almost ankle-deep, and I had great fun making footprint patterns all over the place. We walked for ages, going right up to the water's edge, finding huge shells and upsetting a couple of sea birds who didn't like us going too close to them - they squawked at us every time we went in their direction.

About an hour and a half later we went back to the car and drove to Westport. We passed a caravan park that had a silver spaceship outside, complete with an inflatable alien in a phone box. After it got dark, we saw loads of possums at the side of the road, their eyes glowing red in the car headlights.

The hostel we found was one of the nice clean ones run by a couple in their fifties - generally speaking those hostels are much nicer and they seem to understand the idea of clean a bit better than the studenty ones. We picked up leaflets for things to do tomorrow, and after supper Mikey watched Ocean's Eleven while I went to sleep.