Our new found "family" stood waiting for the new arrivals and were eventually greeted by our new tour guide, Seagull, and 8 other travellers. There was quite a noticeable difference in the noise level of the group today as it was clear we had all bonded last night. The others on the bus were surprised when we said we'd only just all met as it seemed we'd known each other much longer. From the off Seagull seemed much better than Pinky as he was much friendlier and outgoing. Kevin was quick to ask him why he got called Seagull, his answer in German was "ich schieße auf autos!" which means "I shit on cars!" Hopefully that's not the real story but that's certainly his story. Matt also asked him if he can do a Seagull impression, to our surprise he did a fantastic impersonation, until we realised he had a toy seagull in his bag which he had squeezed to make the noise for him down the microphone. It was very funny! He refers to the toy seagull as his girlfriend and she's called Shegull! 
 
From Picton we were heading west through the Marlborough region and our first stop was to be at Hunter's Vineyard for some wine tasting . As you all know Matt and I love a bit of wine tasting so it was quite exciting. It was opened by an Irish man who took some of their wines to a competition in the UK to prove New Zealand can produce nice wine and surprisingly ended up winning two awards. They have won lots of awards since but sadly the owner died just a few hears later so his wife runs it for him now in his memory. We got to try 6 different wines and all bar 2 were delicious which was surprising as normally we only find there's only 1 or 2 that we really like out of 10 or 12!
 
After a few more hours driving, we stopped at a town called Motueka to go to a supermarket. We had all agreed that the best thing to do was to cook in a group so all 10 of us had put $10 in and we got enough stuff to cook cream chicken and rice the first night and do a BBQ on the second night, which is incredibly good value. We had to buy everything here though as there was no shop where we were going. It was pretty funny seeing everyone dash about the shop grabbing the items we needed for such a big meal, it was like being on Supermarket Sweep!
 
We soon arrived at the Abel Tasman National Park, or Marahau as the Maori people call it . We were staying at a place called "The Barn" which unsurprisingly has a big barn as the living area and kitchen. It is a relatively remote place right at the edge of the Park which is famous for its beautiful golden sandy beaches and for having the most sunshine hours in New Zealand. 
 
We all got lovely 4 person dorms this time which was where we got to meet Kara and Catherine who were both English. It was a lovely barn area so as some of us set about cooking for 10, others relaxed and started drinking. Matt and Cathal were having the most interesting time as they met another guy staying here who called himself "Forte!" Yeah strange I know!! He was a bit of a chancer who was hitchhiking his way round New Zealand with his girlfriend and just going wherever he felt. He had changed his name to Forte as he said his favourite question to ask people is, "what's your forte?" He was quite a character to say the least so they were having a great time with him. As we were cooking we got to meet a few more of the group's new members: another German lad called Roman and an English couple called Ian and Philippa . After eating, Forte and Roman had a little go at playing on the guitars and singing then I stumbled across a whole box full of fancy dress costumes and before we knew it nearly everyone was dressed up in silly outfits with me in a Santa dress and Matt in a fairy costume. It was hilarious! After lots of silly pictures and messing about, a few people wanted to put a film on so we all ended up watching the Inbetweeners movie, which we love so we enjoyed that!
 
The next morning 10 of us had to get up pretty early to go on a sailing and hiking trip. The weather forecast had been lovely and sunny so it seemed like the perfect trip but, as usual, they got it wrong so it was in fact cloudy and cold. Nevertheless, we were committed and we all still went. Another of the new guys was a big Irish lad called Pódraig (say Warwick then change the W to a P!) and he came along as well. The boat came to meet us at a beach not far from our hostel and we all had to very quickly hop on in turn as the waves went out to sea to avoid getting wet feet . Everyone managed this except Nienke who wasn't quite quick enough so got soaked before she'd even touched the boat! It was pretty cold sailing so everyone sat and huddled up trying to keep warm; any ideas of having a swim were well out the window now! It was nice sailing though as we got to see lots of the coast line, the split apple rock, Adele Island and lots of seals so we had fun even though it was cold. After about 2 and a half hours of sailing, we got dropped off at a beautiful beach called Anchorage. Like before we all had to jump off without getting wet, everyone managed it this time though!
 
Now we were faced with a 12.5km walk back to The Barn! As we had wanted to stop for a bite to eat, the captain of the boat dropped us on the west of the beach, unbeknown to him or us, a pretty large stream had actually formed in the centre of the beach meaning we had to try and cross it before we could start the walk! this proved to be more successful for some than others with Matt and Kevin taking a big run up and leaping across, even then only just clearing it, while Sarah tried the same thing but seemed to forget about the run up and landed straight in the water! Fearing the same outcome, the rest of us tried to find a path across the stream using the rocks as stepping stones, on the whole this was fairly successful with only a couple of us getting a little bit splashed! While Matt and Kevin laughed their heads off at us all . The first 15 minutes of the trek were the hardest as it was all uphill but it was worth it as the views were beautiful! Looking back over Anchorage Bay it must be amazing when its hot and sunny as there is 3 or 4 different bays all next to each other. As we walked we stopped at each of the lookouts to appreciate the area from different vantage points, this also gave us a lovely view back over the island with a long sand bank on the end which we sailed past. After about 10k we popped down onto one of the beaches to take pictures in some caves and against a big rock as it was a weird rock that had been left stood on its own by erosion and still had a single tree stood on top. Even with these stops, we eventually made it back around 4 hours later. Everyone was very glad to get back as their legs were aching and our feet were hurting. Even though it was quite an easy walk it was the longest we had done since we've been away. 
 
Despite being a little worn out from a hard day's trekking, after showering and warming up, Matt and Cathal set about cooking us all a BBQ! After beers of course! We had bought sausages, burgers, rolls and salad and there was plenty to go round! As dessert, Seagull bought some Havelock green shell mussels for us to taste as they are a local delicacy! I liked them but Matt wasn't too sure!
 
The main event of the evening, however, was Laura's 21st birthday! We had bought her a postcard which we had all signed and a slice of cake which had somehow survived being in Ella's backpack for the whole trek! We all sang Happy Birthday in English, German, French and Irish as well as some other random German songs (which i won't tell you the translation of, as its rather rude) . We then got to embarrass Laura even more by fulfilling the Irish tradition of 21 kisses, we'd never heard of this but it turns out that on your 21st birthday you have to have 21 people each give you a kiss. After a quick man hunt we found out we only had 19 people, including Forte and his girlfriend. Forte played us a tune as she sat on a chair and we all gave her a kiss with Cathal and Matt giving her the extra 2 kisses. As Matt grabbed her to give her the 21st kiss everyone jumped on her giving her a big group hug followed by the bumps on her chair. It was so funny but so lovely as well. 
 
We then set about our new favourite pastime: playing drinking card games! We were all pretty merry and having so much fun that we couldn't believe it when we realised it was only 9pm and nearly all the alcohol had gone!!!! We carried on playing until the drink ran dry, only stopping to move inside and then admitted defeat and headed to bed around 11. I think it was quite lucky the drink had run out because the way the atmosphere was and the fun everyone was having, it definitely would have turned into a messy night if not! Our 'family' had merged with Seagull's original group pretty successfully and we were slowly becoming one big team! It had been such a brilliant and funny few days, it was really starting to feel special being here now after our concerns on the first day. Being with such a brilliant group of people has made all the difference!