Kayaking Pepin Island - Night 88

Glen, a guide from the Cable Bay Kayak company, picked me up at 8:30 and gave me a lift to their home base, just a short, 20-minute drive north of Nelson. The sky was overcast and a bit windy, hardly the picture perfect kayaking weather of yesterday. Our half day trip would take us up and around Pepin Island, lunch at a beach, and back the way we came in the afternoon. Often half-day groups are able to circumnavigate the island, however, today’s tides would prevent us from doing so.

Lunch in the Cove

There were 12 other kayakers beside myself. We would be taking double kayaks, with the exception of the group leader, Nick, who was outfitted in a sleek single yellow Necky. Since I was one of the only ones with any

Pepin Island

experience, I was matched up with a novice, Elise, a young girl from Israel, who was deathly frightened of the rough seas and didn’t talk (or paddle) a whole lot. I think most of her energy went toward trying to balance herself and hang onto her paddle.

Pepin Island Kayaking

They way out to the beach was against the wind and swell and was a difficult paddle, especially when pushing yourself and a chubby teenager through the chop. Early on, we paddled through some low, elongated caves, narrowly escaping the crashing surf. This was easily the most fun I’ve had kayaking; Elise, on the other hand, was white in the face. About two hours after we started we pulled into a hidden cove for a lunch break. On the way back to the landing we spotted a number of fur seals and some great gliding albatross(es)…how do you pluralize albatross? Upon returning to the landing, I jumped in the cool Tasman Sea for a quick swim, I had, after all, worked up quite a sweat pushing all that dead weight around.

The afternoon was employed by my favorite pastime; getting lost in a new town. I wandered the streets of Nelson, strolling down the river walk, up through Church Hill (a cathedral befit for a city ten times the size graces the top of the hill), and finally to the Infocentre where I was able to hook up to

Downtown Nelson

some wireless for long enough to update my journal. Nelson has a good bit of history and the town pulls out all the stops to pitch it as a tourist destination. Also, rather strangely, alongside the historical markers are markers explaining the history of the largest trees in the immediate vicinity. It seems as if the local council, shamed by the denuded hills and logging history of the area, imported rare trees from all over the world and planted them in the town center. The fruits of their forsightfulness now bear, among other arboreal delights, a 100-year old California Sequoia, an 80-year old Turkish Oak, and some variety of palm trees from Brazil.

What I Learned Today: Nearly every Kiwi I’ve talked to since arriving here on the south island holds a number of interesting jobs in order to make ends meet. Perhaps it is the fact that I’ve existed primarily in the tourism realm, however, I think that the adequate social safety net is also a serious factor in the overriding sense of entrepreneurialship I find ingrained in these people. Just imagine how many Americans would start new business ventures if they didn’t have to worry about health insurance. Were I a skeptic, I would attribute big industry’s (and laissez-faire Republicans in general) opposition to state health care is that the fact that it would create thousands of new, smaller and more flexible competitors eager to take market share in every niche possible.

written by

exumenius on January 6, 2008 from Nelson, New Zealand

from the travel blog: Kiwis and Kangaroos

Send a Compliment

comment on this...