We’re back!! Multiday hike number two completed successfully and we had an absolute blast. As opposed to the Alpine conditions of Tongariro, this was a National Park that boasts beautiful beaches and lush rain forest as it’s trademarks.
Day One: Nelson—Marahua—Anchorage Bay; 12.4km
Very early morning getting up and putting the final touches on our packs. We were picked up at the hostel for 7 and had about an hour drive to the town of Marahua, where our hike began. The first day of hiking, in retrospect, was the least scenic, but we had lovely weather and made the best of it, stopping to overlook beautiful beaches whenever we could. We finished our hike into Anchorage a little after lunch, so after a picnic lunch with some new duck friends we spent our afternoon lazing on the beach.
The beaches in National Park are made of crushed granite. Apparently granite beaches usually white, but these have more of a gold hue due to the iron deposits in the soil as well. There are literally these golden bays every few kilometers along this provincial park and we thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon lazing in the sun, after applying liberal amounts of sun cream (as they call it in this country!!)—you really do feel the hole in the ozone down here! Steve took the luxury of a few dips in the turquoise water, but wadding in to my ankles made me realize that although the weather is officially summer, the ocean still thinks it’s too early in the season! Although we had a run-in with the worse snorer yet, we had a wonderful first day on our hike.
Day Two: Anchorage to Barks Bay; 8.4km
The neatest part about this walk, is that you are literally walking along the ocean in parts. There are about five parts of this hike that are solely dependent on the tides. Day two was our first introduction—low tide was at 0600, and we had to cross the Torrent Bay estuary within two hours of low tide. Very early morning getting up and going, but a really neat experience. The water literally flows out over a few kilometer area and allows you to walk 1.2km across this estuary, cutting off almost 5km of walking you’d have to do if you missed low tide. The secret is, though, that the water is never completely gone—we started walking in our hiking boots and quickly had to switch to sandals, as you are still navigating streams and very muddy sections. But all in all, these areas are quite neat and we would both say were the highlight of our walk. The rest of this day involved walking along the coast—you’d head up into the woods for a while, getting nice views from above, and then snake down onto the beach again.
We were actually quite lucky it was such an early start. We arrived at our hut just as the real rain started coming down. Literally, had we been 30 minutes later, we would have been walking in a downpour! The later walkers were coming in just soaked—not sure what they were walking through, but their entire clothes were soaked!! We enjoyed a day in front of the fire, catching up on reading and relaxation.
One of the things that was a bit different about this particular great walk compared to Tongariro, was that most of the group was walking in the same direction, staying at the same huts each night. We met some nice Americans, Canadians and Brits to keep us company throughout the wetter days of this trip.
Day 3: Bark Bay to Awaroa; 14.4km
Another early morning (seems to be the trend of this coastal walk!) but since there was no electricity, you are sleeping by 9pm so a 6am wake-up wasn’t the worst. This morning we had to walk 2 hours before reaching a stream we could only cross within three hours of low tide, making us out of our hut by 7am. But this wasn’t a true “tidal crossing”—it is a stream, that is more manageable at low tide. There were actually two streams—the first, wasn’t too bad (even though I managed to drop my boot in the water!!) but the second was quite wide, quite deep and VERY cold!! Steve started out through this stream, and was trying to navigate a path best for me. Well, the water was so darn cold that I was sure my toes would freeze off if I did anything other than walk straight through! Lucky I could make my pants into shorts, because I wouldn’t have survived this crossing being dry in anything other than short shorts!
We knew about this river crossing that we had to do at low tide, but according to the map it looked like we could make it to our cabin at any time, not depending on tides. Well, Steve and I did decide to walk right there rather than stopping along the way, and aren’t we glad we did! The water was coming into the estuary in front of our hut, but since we hadn’t been to this hut before, we weren’t really sure where we were going. This whole track is marked out by orange triangles, so we just kept following the markers—leading us right through another stream and lots of puddles! We put back on our sandals and just kept walking, and good thing we did—about 20 mins after we had gotten into our hut, the entire estuary was filling up. It is literally impossible to get to the hut at high tide, which the maps didn’t disclose!! We had another wet afternoon of reading and relaxing, but the sun peaked out after dinner so we were able to enjoy the estuary at the evening low tide. Nice pictures of crabs and things to follow! Fun evening of cards with new friends to top off our nights in the Abel Tasman DOC huts.
Day 4: Awaroa to Totoranui; 5.5km
The path from Awaroa hut onto Totaranui beach involves crossing above mentioned estuary that fills in with water at high tide. We had the pleasure of watching numerous groups trying to cross this too close too high tide, so it definitely reinforced that we needed to time this crossing right! Luckily, the tides had been moving later in the day as we went along and with such a short distance to travel we were able to leave closer to 9am this morning. Long estuary crossing this morning, but since we were close to low tide we managed to stay relatively dry in our flip flops. Both Steve and I agree that as we walked further into Abel Tasman, the views got much better, and today was no exception. We had a few beach crossings today, as well as lots of clear views from the cliff edge above the ocean that we walked along. Even the forest parts of this walk are quite beautiful—you are walking through a rain forest with the turquoise blue ocean peeking through the leaves!
Totaranui is a very long beach from where we were going to catch a water taxi further down the park later in the day. Since we had time to kill, we walked an extra few kilometers up the track to Anapui beach, claimed to be the nicest beach in all of Abel Tasman. Although I’m not sure if it truly was the most beautiful, it was quite secluded and we managed to meet up without hut-mates for one more afternoon of comradery, so that was nice. But the icing on the cake was when a large black blob was noted in the water. We discussed for a while if it was truly an animal or a piece of driftwood, but once a fin was placed up in the air we were sure it was some sort of sea creature. Then, before we could even figure out what was happening, this seal found another seal friend and started jumping the waves along the shore of this beach-very cool!! I definitely don’t think you see this every day in the Abel Tasman!
We got onto our water taxi early afternoon and headed down the park, back to Anchorage Bay, where we stayed our first night in the park. I had anticipated this “water taxi” ride to be a nice, peaceful boat ride back up the coast, rather, it was quite a fast, bumpy ride! We did get to see some beautiful rock formations and beaches from the boat, as well as a colony of seals lazing on the rocks, but I was definitely happy when we were back on the beach! But not too long on dry land—cause we were spending our last night in the park on a catamaran which was moored in the Anchorage Bay. We had a relaxing afternoon on the dock, followed by a delicious steak dinner and enjoyed some local wine with some new American friends. We had a very clear night sky to enjoy the Southern Hemisphere stars—they are all upside down! Very relaxing to sleep with the water gentle lapping against the boat—made us excited for our upcoming sailing adventures!
Day 5: Anchorage to Marahua; 12.4km
Our AquaPackers boat took us back into shore at around 10am to start off our last day of hiking through the Abel Tasman National Park. We had a beautiful day to slowly meander our way back to the trail head. We walked for about two hours and then spent an extra-long lunch lounging out on a little bay. We were there as the tide was coming in, so we out to watch some German tourists be unlucky as all their stuff got wet! We then walked for a few more hours, and relaxed again on a different beach. That’s the joy of this hike—when you’ve had enough of the walking, just take a break on the sand!
We made it back to Nelson that evening with just enough time for much needed laundry and showers before heading off on the bus again. We travelled to Greymouth and went on a really fun tour of the Monteiths Brewery. They have tons of interesting beers including a Riedler (beer mixed with lemon-lime juice) as well as a rather delicious black beer, with all the strong flavours of coffee and chocolate! Then onto Franz Joseph glacier, which is very very beautiful, but somewhat lost on us after spending the past few years in BC! We did enjoy the mountain views and reminded us of Chilliwack! We are now driving into Wanaka, on our way to Queenstown tomorrow. Lots of fun adventures, I’m sure, from Queenstown, so stay tuned for more stories and pics!
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