Abel Tasman

After Tongoriro, we moved south towards Wellington and stayed with our new friend Ann in Poirirua (essentially a suburb of Wellington).  From Wellongton we took the ferry to the South Island and landed in Picton.  We spent one night in Blenheim before driving west and north to Abel Tasman – quite possibly one of the most beautiful places on earth!!

We spent 3 days in Abel Tasman, hiking the Coastal Track from the north to south.  As you can see from the photos, the beaches have amazing golden, brown sand and the track (trail) goes from one bay to the next. 

Split Apple Rock

 The first day, we took a water taxi from Marahau to Totaranui (the furthest point that they regularly drop people at).  

Water Taxi

We left our backpacks at the shelter and headed further north to Separation Point for a trail run.  This was great – warm sunshine, clear views and great trails for running.  Separation Point has a little lighthouse on it and has a view of Farewell Spit (a 30 kilometer sand spit) and Golden Bay.  I think that the journey to Separation Point and back to Totaranui was about 15 km. From Totaranui, we picked up our bags and hiked for about 5K to a campground called Waiharakeke (or something similar).  We cooked up a delicious freeze-dried dinner and then enjoyed a campfire with 7 others staying at the same campground who all happened to be German. 

The next day, we had an early start. We needed to hike for about an hour to reach Awaroa at low tide where we completed an 800m tidal crossing (see photo).  

Awaroa Tidal Crossing

The tidal swings were big – a 5m – during our time in Abel Tasman.  From two landlocked city slickers, it was quite phenomenal to see and comprehend the high and low tides.  After the crossing at Awaroa, we continued on to the next tidal crossing where we were a bit tardy!  It was a narrow crossing in a protected inlet so not dangerous – just wet!  We were wet up to our waists and Kyle had to ferry our bags across over his shoulder.  What a hunk – my little bag “ferry”!! 

Bag "Ferry"

We hiked on to Bark Bay that night – I think we hiked about 14 km in total.  (Originally, we were scheduled to stay at the next campground, about 2 km further, but after hiking there and having lunch, we decided to hike back to Bark Bay. It smelled much better!!)  We camped beside an incredible group of Kiwis from Hanmer Springs who were at the start of a 6 day kayak trip.  There were more than friendly – sharing their supper, cookies and, best of all, great songs around a camp fire in the evening! The Department of Conservation (DOC) camp warden loaned them a guitar and we sang the night away.  It was super cool! 

The next morning, we woke up to rain.  We read in the tent for about an hour, hoping that it would pass but it did not.  After a quick (and wet) breakfast, we packed up in the tent and tossed our bags on a 10 am water taxi to be taken back to Marahau.  We had decided that we were going to trail run the remaining 21K back to Marahau and certainly didn’t need the weight of our bags for that!  It rained and rained, and rained the entire way out and seemed to rain harder the further we went!

At about 11K, I pulled a “Cathy.” I tripped over a wooden water drainage path and it was (wo)man down!!  Because it was so wet, I slid quite a distance and scraped up the palms of my hands and my knees.  I was covered in dirt and mud, had ripped holes in the knee of my tights, and had bleeding hands. Not awesome.  We took it down to a walk for the remainder of the trail, which was relatively uneventful.

Once back to Marahau, we had showers and drove on towards Golden Bay.  Overall, Abel Tasman was wicked-awesome and piles of fun!! 

A few more photos...