January 14, 2013

Heavily overcast skies in the morning with forecast for showers in the afternoon. Temperatures were in the low 70s and upper 60s.

Today's adventure was a visit to Abel Tasman National Park. A bus picked us up at our hotel and drove us to Kaiteriteri. I came within an inch of missing the bus and thus the entire day. Last night I fried my special alarm clock for the hard of hearing by plugging it in without using a transformer. Kaput. It's now in the garbage. New Zealand electricity operates on 230V and my alarm clock could handle only 120V.

I called and asked for a wake-up call via a knock on my door at 6:15am, which, after a little bit of dithering, the hotel management agreed to do. They first wanted me to use the alarm clock provided in the room. The sound is too soft for me to hear, I told them. They then offered to give me a wake-up call. I wouldn't be able to hear the phone, especially because it was in another room, I said. I emphasized my hearing impairment. Only then did the desk clerk agree to send someone to knock on my door at 6:15am.

They did what they said they would do, but I wanted to snooze just five more minutes. Next thing I know I awake with a start ten minutes before the bus was due to pick us up. I raced around getting dressed and brushing my teeth, getting to the designated pickup point just in time. Of course the bus was ten minutes late. This at least gave me time to dash into the hotel restaurant and grab a piece of fruit and a croissant so I didn't miss breakfast altogether.

At Kaiteriteri we boarded a boat and headed up the coast towards Totaranui, making stops along the way and dropping off passengers. Unfortunately, the cloud cover was so thick and low, it was even lower than the coastal range of the mountains of Abel Tasman National Park. We were unable to see the higher mountains deeper into the park. I estimate that we were able to see only about 30% of what could have been seen in better weather. Nevertheless, I did my best to channel Ansel Adams and capture the way the clouds folded into the mountainsides. We'll see later how successful I was.

After traveling to the end of the line at Totaranui, the boat headed back towards Kaiteriteri, and dropped us off about halfway at Medlands Beach. We had a couple of hours to "tramp" (what the Kiwis call hiking) to a couple of waterfalls and enjoy our lunches. It had started to drizzle by the time the boat returned to pick us up at 3:00pm, and it was raining in earnest by the time we returned to Kaiteriteri shortly after 4pm. So in some respects the day was a bust, yet I still hope I took some decent photographs. In any case, I greatly preferred taking the trip we did rather than spending the day lounging in my hotel room or going shopping in Nelson.

The only shop I would have been interested in visiting in Nelson would have been Jens Hansen Gold and Silversmith, the folks who made all of the versions of the One Ring used in the LotR films and the silver chain Frodo used to carry the ring around his neck. I have ordered my own Jens Hansen silver chain for my replica of the One Ring; it was actually cheaper to do an online mail order because of a 15% New Zealand tax I would have had to pay if I had purchased it at the Jens Hansen shop. Jens Hansen also sells replicas of the One Ring, although, strictly speaking, they are not "authorized" replicas because they have not been licensed by New Line or Wingnut. However, because Jens Hansen knows the exact details of the dimensions and properties of the One Ring, they are free to make duplicates, and they do so at a price point slightly less than Weta, but still out of my range. I'll have to settle for the gold-plated titanium version for now.

I was paying bills last night (something one has to do even when on vacation -- it's good that I pay all of my bills online) when I made an agonizing discovery: a device exists that I can attach to my iPad that will read the memory card in my camera. In other words, there was a way I could have been sharing photos with you all along if I had only known about this device. I already had purchased a device that connects to a USB port that reads SDHC cards, but iPads do not have USB ports. Oh well. I ordered the little device. It will be waiting for me when I return home, but, unfortunately, you still will be unable to see photos from my trip any sooner. I'm sorry! I'm just as disappointed as you are! I don't know why this device didn't show up on any of my earlier searches. Maybe it has reached the market only recently.

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Last revised: August 3, 2015.