Abel Tasman and Smith's Farm

Having a whole campsite to yourself is a great experience. There's no noise, no people, not issues.

We woke up, made breakfast and Eli took the kids outside to play in the grass and do the required number of handstands to make her feel happy.

After we ate and put the RV into driving mode, we headed north towards the tip of the southern island and the Abel Tasman national park, which had been highly recommended to us by friends and acquaintances alike.

We arrived mid-morning after much twisty driving over mountain roads. The sun was shining and we were greeted by a beautiful day. We slathered ourselves in sunscreen and started the trek to the park, which boasts one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

We hiked across a boardwalk elevated about 6 feet over the marsh/beach covered in sand and smooth, rounded rocks about a palm's width wide. People had climbed down onto the beach and arranged the rocks to spell words, names, and more. Some of the highlights were the rocks that spelled "DANK MEMES" as well as most of our names. We took the time to make a few of our own before moving on into the forested part of the park.

The forest provided some much-needed shade, and we found a bunch of gorgeous waterfalls and little places to stop and appreciate nature in the park.

We walked all the way to an overlook where we could see what looked like endless beach. Some beaches have the tide come in and then leave and the result is a marshy, stinky, unfriendly place. This was just a strand of golden beach as far as the eye could see, with the crystal blue ocean in the distance. It was gorgeous.

Morgan had packed a bunch of sausage, cheese, and crackers, so we found a picnic spot and fed our ravenous children. While we sat and feasted, we were also feasted upon by sandflies, something up until now we had avoided, but had been told to watch out for. The bites were super annoying, large compared to mosquito bites, and itched for weeks. Morgan did his fatherly duty and, as previous experience has shown, is the most delicious person in any group, so nobody else gets bitten.

While we sat we were approached by a weka, which I'm calling the poor man's kiwi. They're about the size of a crow, colored like a kiwi, and totally happy to come begging for snacks. The kids ate far fewer crackers than we had planned, but the weka seemed happy and shadowed us for the rest of the afternoon.

We headed down onto the beach, played in the rivulets left from the last tide, poked at crabs, and enjoyed the sunshine. After an hour or two, we hiked back to the car, doing handstands and climbing on things along the way.

We'd been looking for some better experiences in regards to places to stay. It's super cool that everywhere in New Zealand that isn't marked as "no camping" and is public land is also okay for camping in our self-contained RV, but we needed to do laundry, empty the toilet, and relax a bit. We headed to the Smith's Farm holiday park, which was apparently a farm that also had RV hookups.

We arrived and the girl running the front desk, who turned out to be the daughter of the owner, greeted us with fresh-from-the-oven poppyseed muffins, bags of pellets to feed the sheep and goats on the farm, and a full-featured place to park the RV. We bundled up, fed some sheep and goats, and ate a light dinner.