An Abel Tasman Adventure

Friday last week I finished school for the year, & on the Saturday Will & took off for a few days in the Abel Tasman National Park. We arrived in Nelson at about 2:30pm, then spent just over an hour in the glorious sunshine waiting for our bus to Marahau. Once in Marahau we took a cabin at the beach camp. That night we had some pretty amazing fish & chips at the Fat Tui Cafe, making the most of it before the 3 days/nights of 'camp food' that lay ahead...

The next morning, after a fairly leisurely get-up we hit the track. It was a bit under a 4 hour walk to Anchorage, with some lovely scenery along the way.



We had to have bit of a play with the self-timer to get the above shot of the two of us at the look-out just before Anchorage.

We found a lovely spot to set up camp, then went for an explore of the beach, enjoying the glorious late afternoon sunshine.

The DOC campsites are brilliant. The larger ones have treated drinking water and cooking shelters, plus some (including Anchorage) have areas where you are allowed to have a campfire. We did just that. Now if only we had remembered to pack some marshmallows!

I'm glad we made the most of the weather on that first day, because during the next couple of days we had fairly constant rain! At least it gave Will a taste of what it CAN be like in that part of the world...

We had another relaxed morning, enjoying being cosy & snug in the tent with the rain pouring down. It was only another 4 hour or so walk to Bark Bay which was our destination for the night. We figured there was no point getting in too early, given the weather! It was wet, but at least it wasn't cold, & we had an enjoyable walk.

We took the small side trip out to Cleopatra's Pool. It was really nice, but we decided it wasn't exactly the weather for swimming!

We stopped for lunch in Torrent Bay. Luckily we found somewhere under cover to enjoy our lunch out of the elements. Our rolls tasted pretty damn good! Rain or no rain, it was still a very scenic lunch spot.

 

Below is a rather wet & bedraggled looking Will, looking back on our lunch spot in the far distance.

The next highlight before hitting Bark Bay was the awesome swing bridge at Falls River. Very cool.

I'm going to include the shot below because I think it is cool, very atmospheric... It's not actually bad mist we were walking in, more a case of the camera failing to cope with the wet & misting over!

We arrived in Bark Bay & went about setting up camp. It was a lovely campsite, on a spit with water on both sides. I would like to go back there again in better weather.

The kitchen shelter was like a Chinese laundry! Clothing was strung up on rope everywhere, with people just trying to get whatever they could dry. I should have taken a photo, it was quite a sight! The 'best' was one idiot trying to dry a pair of shorts by holding them above the flame of his lit camping stove! This kitchen shelter had the best views of any we came across with lovely picture windows looking out to the estuary. Once Will & I were cosy again in warm dry clothes we played cards for a bit before cooking some dinner & turning in for the night.

We weren't in any rush the next day, with our destination being our last campsite at Awaroa. There was no point leaving early as we had a tidal crossing at Onetahuti, about 2 hours walk away, & low tide wasn't until late afternoon. It was nice to actually go down & have a look at the Bark Bay beach, as visibility had been pretty poor the previous day.  

As we left camp we came across a very nice tui feeding on the flax, so thought we had better get a pic for Richie...

Again, despite the rain we had another very pleasant walk with some lovely views. As Will said, you can handle being wet & warm, or cold & dry, it's just when you get wet & cold that you start to run into problems...

We made our tidal crossing in good time. At the highest point the water was about mid-thigh, so nothing to really worry about. My shorts were already soaked from the rain, so it didn't really matter! As we finished crossing we did meet a French couple coming in the other direction who weren't overly happy at the prospect of having to go across... It didn't help that they were both wearing trousers!  

This last little leg of the trip was really wet with consistently heavy rain. We made it to Awaroa & took refuge in the kitchen shelter. After a while the DOC ranger came by to check our tickets, so we had a chat. He was expecting 4 tents (8 people) at the campsite that night, but he wasn't convinced they would make it. As it turns out, we ended up with the place to ourselves. He suggested that due to the torrential rain we sleep in the kitchen shelter. It ended up being one of those unexpectedly good nights. This shelter had metal candle holders with a couple of stubby ends left in there. We had a nice romantic evening by candlelight, cosy & dry in the shelter, with the rain pelting down all around us! I slept up on the stainless steel bench, but Will didn't trust himself to sleep up there in case he fell off in the night while tossing & turning. He slept on the floor, but, ever the gentleman, insisted on sleeping directly below me so that if I fell off the bench in the night I would fall onto him & not the concrete floor!

Wednesday morning was an early start as there was a 6:17am low tide & we were scheduled to cross the Awaroa inlet. We had a water-taxi pick-up at Totoranui at 11am. We got to the inlet, only to be told that due to the rain it was impassable. Instead we tagged on to a very nice group of Aussies & back-tracked to Awaroa Lodge. The manager read us the riot act there (4 star premises, paying customers, NO wet gear inside the lodge etc. etc.) but eventually we were able to get in touch with our water taxi company & reschedule a pick-up from Awaroa. We got on a boat at about 10:30am & had a very wet hour or so ride back to Marahau. The timing was perfect as our bus back to Nelson left at 12:50pm. Back at Marahau the camp staff took pity on us & let us use their showers, & even lent Will & I a big fluffy dry towel each! Feeling much more human, we arrived at Nelson airport 2 & a half hours before our flight back to Wellington left.

Due to his work travel Will had been upgraded in his frequent flyer status, & had been sent 2 free passes to the Koru Lounge. We had a look at Nelson airport, but there was a sign on the lounge saying that it was members only, no guests allowed. We thought we'd ask the check-in woman anyway, & she took pity on us (we had been chatting to her about 3 days of walking & camping in the rain!) & gave us the entry code to the lounge. She didn't even take Will's passes off him which was brilliant. Anyway, we had a lovely finish to the trip, making the most of the free food, wine, internet etc in the lounge before arriving back in Wellington. It was a fantastic adventure, & one I would like to do again with Will, although preferably in slightly better weather!