NZ Day 2 - Hot Springs and Long Drives
Monday, 3 April 2017
Jon and I started the day with another lovely run through what must surely be every variety of fir tree known to NZ. Obviously these trails would have been even better to ride on with a a mountain bike, but running them was the next best thing. Back at the camper van we roused the very sleepy children and just managed to get packed up and away by 10am, conveniently the same time that the thermal pools open up in Hamner Springs. It was really awesome - there were 16 different pools (including a 25m regular lap pool) of various mineral compositions with the hottest sulphur pools being around 42 degrees - which was HOT. We had a great few hours in all the pools before returning to our camper van for a snack. 
Then we hit the road for drive up to the Abel Tasman National Park (or pretty close to it anyway). At campervan speeds and with regular stops for roadworks it’s quite a trip so we didn’t arrive in Motueka until 6pm. The drive was really nice though - the road sticks to the valleys next to wide rocky rivers. The last part of the trip reminded me of driving around Sheffield in Tasmania - it was surprisingly agricultural for a lot of the way - we saw charming farms growing corn, apples, raspberries, blueberries, hops and bees. There was also lovely native forest sections and even a waterfall that we stopped at for lunch. We needed to get all the way here as we have a boat-hike-boat trip in the national park planned for tomorrow that I’ve been looking forward to for ages. The only dampener is that this area is due to receive the heavy rain from ex-Cyclone Debbie over the next 3 days - tomorrow will actually be the least-worst of the days so we are trying to make the best of it.
So now we’re settled at a free-camping site by the beach at Motueka which is nice. This tiny area is absolutely jam packed with vans and travellers of all descriptions.
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