Abel Tasman National Park

Day 175 – Marahau, New Zealand

I’m up to date with my pictures! Check out Napier, Wellington, Marahau and Abel Tasman National Park.

To recapitulate, the 4-5 day walk that follows the Abel Tasman National Park’s coast is labelled a Great Walk in New Zealand, and more important for me, it is graded “easy”. That what I’ve started today.

Abel Tasman National Park – The trail

Instead of camping or staying in a hut each night, I’m dropped off and picked up by a boat shuttle that covers the main legs of the Walk – this way I can walk by day with a light pack and sleep at night snug in my hostel.

(Hostel that is empty tonight, apparently my fellow travellers have moved on – I’ve spread my stuff everywhere, put music on, and put my clothes to dry in my dorm hanging from every bed, since the hostel offer a free-to-use washing machine but no dryer. Since I’ve had to put the heater on because it is cold at night, it works out.)

The shuttle dropped me as scheduled at Awaroa, after an hour and a half of cruising blue waters, looking at a strangely split rock – called Split Apple- and calling on a couple of seals.

Abel Tasman National Park – Split Apple Rock

From Awaroa beach, I took the wide, well-maintained path over the first spit of land to the next beach, Onetahuti (see picture header), where I stopped for lunch before going on to the next beach and my pick-up, Tonga Quarry.

Abel Tasman National Park – Flax and boardwalk over the wetland along Onetahuti Beach

Each leg is quite short, from 2 to 4 hours, but when I looked at combining two together, I found that the boat schedule didn’t give me any margin. It is possible on paper, but it doesn’t allow for breaks, woolgathering and taking pictures of pretty flowers.

Abel Tasman National Park – Foxglove

The weather was very accommodating, and the views were hence stunning. The hard blue of the sea, becoming green in the shallows then transparent at the edge of the beach, the sky sparsely dotted of fluffy white clouds, the scale of greens sported by the  vegetation, the white or golden crescent of a beach… when you stop to see through a breach in the trees the sea glittering under the sun, it is breathtaking.

Abel Tasman National Park – View over the sea

I arrived at Tonga Quarry with plenty of time before my pick-up, so I took my shoes off and went to explore the beach, the stream that was running over rocks before rejoining the sea, the strange sun-bleached driftwood, and a flightless bird that took an interest in my blue pareo drying on a picnic table.

Abel Tasman National Park – Tonga Quarry – Inquisitive bird

The water was too cold to think about going swimming, but I waded a bit for the fun of it.

Abel Tasman National Park – Tonga Quarry – Look at the green mussels!

And then the boat arrived, and we cruised safely to Kaiteriteri, the bus shuttle harbour, where a courtesy bus shuttle dropped me off at my hostel. And even though I’m the only one to go back there, they waived the shuttle cost because I took a three-day pass. (Which I hope to extend to a further fourth day, I will see tomorrow if they can do that.)