{"id":706,"date":"2009-07-04T23:07:57","date_gmt":"2009-07-05T03:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deridder.ca\/blog\/?p=706"},"modified":"2012-10-10T20:16:56","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T00:16:56","slug":"restoring-our-honeymoon-blog-days-13-14-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deridder.ca\/blog\/?p=706","title":{"rendered":"Our Honeymoon blog: Days 13 & 14"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Island Day 13 & 14 – Mapua, Pohara, Pupu Springs, Horseback Riding
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Day 13<\/strong><\/span>
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The weather was a bit iffy.. So we decided to just take our time and make our way close to where we would be horseback riding tomorrow. There would be lots to see on the way..<\/span>
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So we drove along the coast for a bit to a small town called Mapua, and had lunch on the\u00a0wharf.. This is a shot from our lunch table..<\/span>
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It was a nice relaxing lunch,\u00a0until we started getting eaten by the sand flies – luckily right when we were done.. So we got the heck out of the restaurant and started to move around to keep the bugs away..<\/span>
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The town is known as an artsy area, and the wharf was no exception.. there were plenty of art shops, so we strolled through a couple.. Mish bought some small artwork for her mom and other folks..<\/span>
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We hit the road again, along the coast to\u00a0Motueka, just to check out the beach, a local pool, and scope out a possible place to stay for tomorrow… There was supposed to be some sort of shipwreck there too, but we didn’t see it..<\/span>
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We continued on the road, across another mountain (Takaka hill) which had great valley views and a million zigs and zags. It runs along the edge of Abel Tasman (the upper right green corner of the map above, is a national park called Abel Tasman), which is where we were planning on sea kayaking in a couple days..<\/span>
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Here is a panoramic near the top of Takaka.. the road zig zags to the right, and eventually leads down to the valley..<\/span>
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A closer look at the road ahead..<\/span>
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I took a quick shot in the same area.. and while the below pick looks like a big calm lake with mountains around it…<\/span>
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It’s actually just a puddle on a rock, with mountains in the background \ud83d\ude09 I put the camera right on the rock to take the pic..<\/span>
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So we made it to the campsite pretty early, found a spot there, and hung out on the beach (Pohara Beach).<\/span>
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I read on the beach until I couldn’t take the cold wind anymore.. While Mish wandered around the beach and took photos (she claimed it wasn’t do cold).. Maybe I was still wrapping up my little cold I had, but I was not warm! It actually seemed like when the sun was out, it was warm.. But I think there were only 2 clouds in the ski, and they just kept taking turns covering the sun..they seemed to speed to cover the sun, then stop until the next one got there. Very frustrating!<\/span>
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Here are some of Michelle’s pics:<\/span>
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Mish poked and prodded the sea cucumber a bit.. and took a video.. it moves slow, but if you look closely, you kinda see it’s ‘fat’ section moving..<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n