NZ: Abel Tasman National Park

Coming back to hostel life wasn’t quite the shock I thought it might be after 10 days of city life in Melbourne. Although, my first night back on the Stray route, I ended up going out for Thai food and a few bottles of wine with a fellow traveller instead of preparing my budget meal in the communal kitchen. But the rest of the week I was back on track with daily hiking, preparing my own meals, and generally slowing down to a very chilled out pace.

I spent four nights in Abel Tasman National Park, the beautiful northern corner of the South island with lush forest and golden beaches. The first day I hiked 12km in the morning along the coastal route and took an afternoon sailboat ride back to Marahau, where the park entrance and my campsite/hostel is. It had started to rain fairly persistently, which meant that open mic night at the pub down the road was packed with travellers and locals alike, chatting and dancing to music by a band from Byron Bay, Australia, and other local musicians. It was one of those fun, random nights in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of strangers.

The next day, I shamelessly slept until 11:30am, dozing throughout the morning to the sound of rain pattering on the roof of the portable room with three beds that is my “cabin”. It’s like one of those little sheds you might buy for your backyard to use as an office. There are 3-bed and 5-bed cabins as well as some semi-permanent tents, also with beds and linens provided. Given all the rain, I am glad I went for the cabin option, but in the end, it is all very basic and functional. The afternoon was laundry day and I finished a book purchased only days earlier, called Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, an Australian author.

Friday night, my friend Annette drove up from Blenheim to stay here for a visit and to go hiking with me. We were so lucky with the weather on Saturday - blue skies and warm but not too hot. We hadn’t pre-booked our water taxi because we weren’t sure about the weather, but we lucked out and there were two no-shows, meaning we could hop on one of the 9:00am boats to take us up to Tonga Bay to start our hike. The boat ride up took nearly an hour, and we pulled up to a seal colony along the way.

The water taxis are awesome. They are speed boats that hold up to 20 people and shuttle you to various points along the coastal walking track as well as picking you up at the end of the day. You can’t just hail one from the beach though. You pre-book a specific time and drop-off point and/or pick up at the end of the day so they make sure there is enough room on the boat and so that no one gets left in the park overnight. The coastal track takes 3 days to hike through, and there are some basic huts along the way with toilets and sinks, so getting left in the park wouldn’t be the end of the world, but not ideal.

Our hike on Saturday was probably another 12km, although I didn’t map it out. It was much steeper and challenging than Thursday’s walk, but we talked the whole way, snapped photos and enjoyed the scenery. The end of the hike was at Torrent Bay, where there is a random community of houses. It is quite odd actually. I counted at least 30 homes, holiday homes and permanent residences combined, and there are no roads meaning that all their supplies and access must be by boat. The tide at the beach there changes significantly because it is so shallow so that at low tide boats appear moored on the beach, but at high tide they are floating in several feet of water. These houses really are isolated with nothing but rainforest behind and the beautiful beaches and ocean in front.

Anyway, we waded out knee deeps to jump in the water taxi at 4pm and we thought we would have to jump back in the shallow water at Marahau to get off the boat but instead the tractor and boat trailer came out to meet us in the water! It was so funny. I took a picture below of another boat being pulled in. It was a great way to stay dry, but seeing a tractor coming out to meet you in the ocean it really bizarre!

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Annette had brought fresh groceries for dinner because Marahau is so isolated and I was getting tired of the food I bought 3 days prior. We made a stir fry for dinner and enjoyed it with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc she bought from a winery in Blenheim the weekend before. My bus driver built a bonfire for us out the back of the kitchen area, so we spent Saturday night around the fire with fellow travellers and went to bed early. I had to say goodbye to Annette and Abel Tasman on Sunday morning to join my bus and travelling companions for the next 5 days as we head down the West Coast of the South Island. ….